Overture
by AgnesDei
Summary: A badly injured man stumbles from the wreckage of Larkhill Detention Centre, setting in motion a momentous chain of events that will forever change the lives of those he meets.
1. Orpheus

**A/N: A few words. This story was originally written over the spring and summer of 2006, and I present it to you now essentially unaltered aside from formatting changes, so you will notice that my writing style has changed a little with time.**

**You may find that a working knowledge of Shakespeare helps as you read, particularly "The Tempest" (to which this is a vague homage) but is by no means essential.**

**You will also find that many scenes in the story are left either partially or wholly unexplained. This is deliberate, and it is to your interpretation that I commend these.**

**Final note: this is a prequel, taking place roughly twenty years before the events of the movie.**

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><p><em>Darkness.<em>

_Agony._

Both wrapped themselves around V as he stumbled away from the distorted wreckage of the detention centre. He turned, his head a sudden, sharp cascade of disorientation, but there was no pursuit. No armed men, no dogs. Hazy, silhouetted figures fled the flames and the ruinous chaos like refugees from the shattering of Pompeii, but as V pushed through, first into the bracken and then into the inviting shroud of the beech forest, the shrieks of man and collapsing edifice dwindled behind him. He did not look back again.

The scarlet flarelight of the inferno was muted by distance now, and V staggered, regaining his equilibrium just barely. The autumn breeze rose to a fine squeal and hiss in the naked branches above him, and the chill snap of it sliced at his slick, weeping skin on every point that gave it purchase.

The pain kicked at him like a maddened horse as, finally, the incandescent adrenaline of rage and urgency flickered, faltered and died in his pumping veins. His teeth sank into his tongue; he was scarcely aware of it. The forest rattled about and above him as he stumbled again and, this time, sank to the ground, almost gratefully. The maiden carpet of leaves, although they prickled, formed a cool bed, and he curled like a child amongst them, an inch from acquiescence to a slow but peaceful death in this very spot.

_Get up._

The voice in his head was soft, but sheathed in steel. Female. He knew who had spoken, oh yes, and he knew that she would continue to berate him, but nonetheless, he covered his withered ears and whined softly.

"Valerie…" he croaked, a feat achieved through vocal cords coated in smoke and seared by superheated air.

_Don't appeal to me, V. You disappoint me. This far and no further?_

"It's too much. I want an…end to…it."

_I've seen the end, but that was my due. It isn't yours. You have work to do. Now GET UP._

Snarling hoarsely, sounding more animal than human, V dragged at the mud and leaves, his limbs twisting in the extremity of exertion. Although he couldn't know it, his back was a particular point of horror in a catalogue of biological catastrophe; deltoid and trapezius muscles shifted bizarrely beneath skin left scarcely thicker than paper.

Moment by moment, V achieved his feet again, laboured breath pouring in and out of his scorched throat. Grasping at branches along the way, grateful of any support that he could find, he wandered deeper into the wood.

"What now?" he whispered. "Valerie?"

No reply, and even through his private tornado of pain and exhaustion, he understood that there could and would be none forthcoming. 'What now?' was a question that belonged to him and him alone.

The earth underfoot became treacly and smooth, and the gurgle of water spoke of a stream, close ahead in the suffocating gloom. V waded into it with sudden abandon, finding that the freezing water numbed his myriad wounds. He dropped to his knees in the modest current, bathing his hands now, sluicing his shoulders, splashing his face…and froze like a fox as a strident noise pierced the cloak of the trees.

A dog. The bark came again, not the staccato volley of an animal crazed for the chase, but the simple yaps of a dog at play. The far bank of the stream was crowded with cow parsley, fully four feet high. Without warning, the frail chandelier-heads of the plants trembled. V hunched in the water, unsure if this was for defence or protection or, in his decrepit state, probably neither. He struggled to control his breathing, and fixed his gaze on that spot.

Abruptly, the parsley shuddered and thrashed again, this time a little way downstream. V tensed, knowing that flight was not one of his options; even at full strength he could not possibly hope to outrun a dog. He slitted his eyes and waited for the assault to begin.

The next movement of the undergrowth was no more or less than an explosion of both animal and plant. A sleek dark shape erupted from the parsley, pink tongue askew, all four legs akimbo, and eyes bursting with mad joy. The black Labrador landed in the stream with such force and exuberance that V was subjected to a minor tsunami, and then the water stilled once more as man and beast sized one another up.

V angled his head, still locked in a stiff crouch, but the dog merely stepped forward a pace or two, claws clicking and skittering on the gravel of the stream bed. Its tail swung from side to side uncertainly, and it reeled its tongue in a little.

"Nelson!"

The voice was somewhere nearby. The dog glanced towards the call, then returned its solemn attention to V. Its tail pendulumed again.

"Nelson? Where are you, you bugger?"

Even closer. V's heart skipped. He knew that a decision had to be made, but considering the evidence at hand, he had to wonder how little of a decision that would, in fact, turn out to be. He was weak and dizzy, naked and raw, and – he had a strong suspicion – this dog would not so easily be deterred. Its intentions were benign, he was convinced, but it was a more intelligent animal than any casual observer might believe, and it wanted its master to find them both here.

"Nelson! Bloody hell, there you are, you little…"

The man's tone of aggrieved relief stuttered to a halt as he caught V in the beam of his torch. His mouth hung open for second after second, and then he slipped down the treacherous bank and landed heavily in the low water.

"Jesus. God, what happened? I saw the fire from the hill, were you in that?"

V had averted his gaze from the painful glare of the torch, but now he steeled himself and regarded the man now crouching down at his side.

"We've got to get you to hospital," the man was saying, his gaze locked with V's.

"No. I beg you," V said, and licked at his lips. This slight action was both soothing and irritant all at once.

"But look at…you're…you'll die."

"So be it, but," he sucked in a perilous breath, "no doctors. Please."

"All right. All right, but I can't just leave you _here_. My farm's just through the woods, about half a mile up there. No argument."

With an economy of movement, the man swept his coat from his back and wrapped it around V, helping him to his feet, placing an arm around his shoulders. The man's grip was firm and infinitely helpful.

"I'm Edward," he said, at last. "Can you walk all right?"

"I believe so."

It did not strike V until some time later that Edward had not asked for _his_ name. Perhaps it wasn't as surprising as all that; those who shunned the authorities usually had their reasons and, on the catastrophe curve that their world was rollercoastering toward, these usually went hand in hand with desperately adopted anonymity.

The two made their careful way back up the damp-slicked bank, Nelson bounding behind them, claws scratching at the earth for purchase.

V was content enough to rest his tortured lungs, but Edward kept up a soft commentary as they made their way through to the far side of the echoing wood. He wasn't in pursuit of a response, however slight; he was merely trying to reassure his companion.

"I've got a fair idea why you don't want a doctor, lad, and I'd like you to know that it's okay by me. There are a few smallholders like me around Larkhill, and none of us have any great liking for the military. We all had our suspicions about what was going on at that bloody camp, anyway."

"You were wrong," V whispered. His throat was still a column of pain, but some things had to be said. Edward reacted. "I was?" he asked.

"Yes. Whatever you thought the camp was for…I assure you, the reality was far worse."

"Ah," was Edward's eventual response. "I understand," he added.

Whatever else Edward had to say, he reserved. He was thinking, anyway. Wondering, in the main, what on earth he was getting into here. It was true that there had been some tacit gossip in the snug at The Grouse concerning the new camp, but what he'd neglected to add was that much of it was simple, _fearful_ gossip.

Like too many people, Edward's fellow landspeople measured the impact of any new event or development with regard to only one thing: their own point on the graph. Of course they were afraid; almost all of them had finished by concluding that it was either nuclear or chemical warfare work, neither of which they wanted brewed up on the borders of their own land. Who would?

"We're here," Edward said, forcibly derailing his own troubling train of thought. He had a patient to tend to; all else could wait. He unlocked the back door and guided V into the kitchen, pausing only to close and bolt it behind them. Nelson would have to stay out from under their feet for tonight.

People often expressed surprise that Edward had a grand, bulky leather sofa in his kitchen, of all places. Edward always riposted thus: it was the warmest and most fragrant room in the house and, besides, it was the kitchen that was traditionally the hive of a farm's activities, not the lounge. Of course, that was when he'd still had a family here. He'd stopped trying to explain himself lately and, in fact, had stopped spending more time in the kitchen than bare duty demanded.

Thus it was that V became the first human presence on that sorely neglected piece of furniture in almost six months. He eased down onto the sofa and lay on his side, exhaling wearily. For the first time, out of the murk of the wood, V could see his companion properly. Edward was at least sixty, and more likely some way past that mark, with skin not so much tanned as polished by the sun; a number of small liver spots had colonised his cheek. His hair was rebellious, although a gorgeous shade of silver, and his eyes a creamy brown.

"I've got to go and get a few things," Edward said, shortly. "Bandages, zinc cream, a couple of jabs. You're not allergic to anything I ought to hear about?"

And to think, V mused, that I thought I had given up on being surprised by life's anomalies.

"Are you a doctor?"

"In a sense, but not the one you're after. I'm a vet. Don't move, I'll be right back."

The farm's consultation room was compact indeed. Most of Edward's work these days came by way of working – he'd always cringed at the dreadful pun – in the field. And after all, with the best will in the world, getting a Hereford bull into a farmhouse was a trial. The only cases he saw in here were farm cats and dogs, and there were precious few of those now, in an age of technological advance, or people's pets, from Larkhill and Durrington. The latter he was particularly pleased about. Durrington had its own vet, he was aware, but it seemed that Edward's reputation had spread itself around quite nicely.

He pulled the small refrigerator open and selected, after a moment's thought, an ampoule of amoxicillin and one of codeine. Best to stick to the old tried and tested for now. Hypodermic needles were in the next drawer, and bandages in the cupboard below.

If some part of him was surprised that the sofa was still occupied when he returned, he ignored it. V lay exactly where and how Edward had left him, his gaze fixed on some indefinable point in space.

His eyes, that was the thing. Edward had seen pain and suffering in both man and beast, not least of all in his late wife, bless her, but even though this man's injuries were the most critical he'd ever had the misfortune to encounter, his bright blue eyes weren't clouded by that pain; weren't even touched by it. They were clear and piercing.

Pushing that contradictory, tricky thought aside for fear of where it might take him, Edward studied V's prostrate form.

"It's not as bad is it looks, lad, and certainly not as bad as it must be feeling. You took most of it on your back, from what I saw, although your hands, arms and feet are in a bit of a state, too."

"And my face?" said V, the question hissed out on a short exhalation of agony. The man must have seen the hesitation in Edward's manner, because he closed his eyes briefly in understanding. Still, Edward felt he had to say _something_ to make waves in the rotten silence that had just descended.

"You're no Brad Pitt, lad, I'll be honest with you," he said, trying for just a trace of joviality as he slid a needle into an ampoule's stopper with a tiny squeak. He avoided that still, penetrating gaze on the pretext of measuring the clear fluid out, although in truth Edward could dose animals in his sleep. Once the syringe was filled, he held it up to the light and ejected just enough of the fluid to be sure that there was no air trapped inside. Then he caught V's eye momentarily, muttered, "Sorry…have to do this," and pressed two fingers hard into the reddened, leprous flesh just above his patient's elbow.

To his significant surprise, V uttered nothing more than a harsh, nasal breath as Edward's fingers sought the vein. It wasn't as simple as all that; Edward found that there was a great deal of finely corded muscle there for the fellow's comparatively lean frame. Still, after a second's slight readjustment, the vein rose obligingly, and he slipped the needle into it.

"There. That ought to knock the corners off'f it," he said, finally, forcing his eyes back up. It wasn't easy. Quite apart from the devastation wreaked on that face – and God alone knew, that was cause enough to shy away – it was those endlessly soft, steady eyes that trifled with him. Not that they spoke of the vacancy of madness…quite the reverse. If anything, this was quite the most _rational_ stare he'd ever been subject to, and to be pinned like this by an apparently weak, helpless man was doubly perturbing.

V, already unwinding as the codeine filtered through him, had a more than adequate sense that his host was finding events discomfiting, and not without due cause, either. He decided to try to ease some of the rigid tension.

"Edward. Thank you for your help. I believed, after my time in the camp, that simple human charity was at a loss in this land."

Edward's brows unknotted somewhat, although his general expression remained grave.

"You're welcome, lad, although I don't know that I'd call it anything as grand as 'charity', just something you do. I became a vet because I couldn't ignore sickness and pain, be it in humans or animals. And now," he went on, picking up a second syringe, "let's get along wi' this, shall we?"

When Edward had administered the amoxicillin, he had V stand up from the sofa so that some dressings could be applied. He tended to his back first, wincing at the devastation he saw there, ambiguous in the darkness of the forest, but unavoidable now in the relentless lamplight of the kitchen. The exposed musculature was like thick cuts of pork in a butcher's window. V, catching Edward's small indrawn breath, half turned over his shoulder.

"Is it so bad?" he asked, somewhat sadly. Edward mentally shook himself, and set about pasting gauze and zinc cream to the bare flesh.

"Well, you've still got _some_ skin left back here," he talked as he worked, trying to disentangle himself from the boiled meat smell that he was wreathed in, "but not much. I'm only doing what I can, mark you. This isn't a burns unit, which is where you ought to be."

"I understand, Edward, and I am thankful, but you know yourself where I have come from and thus, I hope, why I cannot possibly solicit any more assistance than your own?"

"That I do. Now try to hold still, lad."

Unrolling a long, wide bandage, Edward passed this over V's shoulder, across his chest, and back under his arm, carefully securing the gauze pad in place on his back. Pinning one end in place, he began another roll, then another, until the whole of that red, seeping torso was mercifully shrouded in clean, sterile white crepe.

As Edward turned his attention to his hands, V felt moved to speak.

"You live alone?"

"For three years, now. Yvonne, my wife, she died. Liver cancer." This simple statement took place whilst Edward's gaze was directed down, studying V's hands, but V knew without a trace of doubt that this would have been the case even without any excuse of bandaging to be attended to.

"I'm sorry," he said, gently.

"Weren't your fault. Weren't anyone's fault. She fought it for ten months. That was just like my Yvonne, that was."

"You have children?"

"A son. He went off to university in London, still lives down there. He's a good kid; when his mum died, he said he'd drop everything and come back here to help out. Edward paused as he finished tending to V's hands, and indicated that he should sit so his feet could be treated. "Anyway," he went on, "I wouldn't hear'f it. He's got a good thing going in the city. He's earned it. And I can run the place myself, any rate.

"I shut down most of the farm operations and kept to the vet business. All I've got left now are the goats, and I wouldn't get rid of them, my boy'd kill me." Edward chuckled. "He loved them goats. Gave them all names."

"Nelson seems a diligent enough companion," said V, dryly. "Speaking of which, may he come in? I feel somewhat callous, being the cause of his ejection from his own fireside, especially given his part in my saving."

As he pinned the last bandage on V's leg, Edward glanced up in surprise, which quickly dissolved into a thoughtful, sidelong stare.

"If you like," he said, "but, you know…"

"Yes?" asked V, politely.

"Well, I don't know quite how to put this, but you're a very well-spoken young man, you could even put my son to shame, and that's no easy task, that boy could charm the legs off a camel. I just wondered how come you ended up at that camp. I thought they were only for troublemakers."

V digested this question with the gravity that he felt it deserved. Edward, although quite the most selfless human being that V had encountered in some time, had nevertheless fallen prey to the same dire misconception as so many of his countryfolk; the notion of the Other. The ideal that any difficult element of society could be simply and quickly pigeonholed, dealt with and disregarded. Setting this straight was going to require careful and precise enunciation.

"Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn," he began, "was a novelist and playwright. John T. Scopes was a teacher. Mohandas Gandhi was a lawyer. In ways great or small, local or global, all of these men challenged the authorities so profoundly by their deeds that they had to be stifled. Are you surprised to learn that those who shake the _deepest_ tenets of establishment are those of the pen and not the sword?

"I have a confession," he went on, placidly. "I cannot recall so much as my own name or past, much less the precise words or actions that brought me, roundabout, to Larkhill. However, it seems to me that I have retained all that I needed to retain and, more importantly, all that _should_ be retained. I believe I can live without a name or a biography. What I could not bear to live without are the stories of others."

Edward hadn't moved one inch throughout this soft soliloquy, and remained still even after V inclined his head to indicate that he was finished. Finally, he shifted his features into a wry smile.

"I guess you're a troublemaker after all, lad," he said, and went to unlock the back door. Nelson slithered his glossy body through as soon as the gap was wide enough and moved to sit, panting gently, directly in front of V. Edward closed the door again and turned, his hand on the latch.

"You sure he won't bother you?"

"No," V replied, his misty gaze meeting the dog's. "We shall be fine, I'm sure, and the best of friends."

"So long as you're sure. I'll just see to your face, then, before I get to bed."

Edward moved toward the medical supplies on the kitchen table, but V held up one elegantly bandaged hand.

"If you please, but no matter," he said, softly. "There'll be time enough for masks in the future. For the time being, all I require is a blanket."

The expression in Edward's eyes was indecipherable; it was composed of too many elements to be certain of any one given aspect. However, he nodded, and left the room to fetch a blanket.

Meanwhile, V and Nelson regarded one another across the space of a few feet, both lit on one side by the crumbling kitchen fire. A log split in the hearth with a subtle cracking sound, and at last, V smiled, a smile that only the dulling effect of the codeine had made possible.

"I thank you, too, Nelson. Only the noble Gelert could possibly best you, I'm certain."

The dog pawed at the air, and for that one second, all seemed well with the world.


	2. Regeneration

Unbeknownst to one another, neither V nor Edward slept well in the last shank of the night. Only Nelson, with that sweet self-possession that, it seemed, only a blessed lack of sapience could bestow, had dozed peacefully, if not in his usual spot. He normally slept in a well-worn basket at the foot of Edward's bed but, for reasons known only to himself, had elected not to leave V's side.

Edward, as was his habit with a farm to run, rose well before dawn and set to milking the goats. V sat before the cool ashes of the previous night's fire, wrapped close in the blanket in one of the straight-backed chairs, silent, unmoving, except for one hand that idly and slowly stroked the dog's silken head. Nelson, too, was still and pensive aside from his tail, which described occasional slow sweeps on the stone flags behind him. The thump and clank of buckets rang through the back door from the goat pen outside as the day moved onward and, eventually, a blinding white line of sunlight painted itself across the floor from a gap between the curtains.

After a time, when the goats had given of their all, Edward nudged the door open with his foot and entered, a steel bucket of milk in each hand. He nodded to the back of V's head then, fetching a ladle, poured a generous dash of milk into the bowl on the floor. Nelson, obviously placing a higher priority on warm goat's milk than on having his ears rubbed, trundled over and dipped into it.

Edward was at a loss. Events that had seemed strange enough in the hind end of the night were looking little less than outlandish on a bright autumn morning, and in one helpless moment, he began to wonder whether he hadn't taken a madman into his home. For want of anything else to do, he switched on the lamps on the dresser.

It was only then that V raised his head and turned, only a slight stiffness in the gesture betraying any discomfort at all, let alone the vicious pain that, Edward assumed, he had to be racked with.

"Good morning," said V, his voice a little clearer than last night. Perhaps the damage to his vocal cords wasn't permanent, after all.

"Morning, lad," Edward countered, massively relieved that his patient was now talking although, as a vet, this was in fact something of a novelty for him. "Did you sleep all right? I gave you a fair whack of that codeine."

"Everything was well, I thank you. I wonder if I may ask a delicate question?" Edward, who was industriously wringing cold water from a couple of kitchen towels, covered the milk pails with these, and nodded.

"You seemed apprehensive last night, when I declined to have my face bandaged. I must ask," he went on, "is it that disturbing? If so, I shall submit. I've no wish to alarm you, least of all in your own home."

"No, it's not disturbing, I've seen some injuries in my time, but…"

"But never on a human being," V finished for him. Edward saw those bright sapphire eyes soften, and he elected to try for honesty.

"No, you're right," he said.

"May I see a mirror?"

The question had come in from left field, and Edward had to reel in an automatic response and begin over again. It wasn't much improved the second time around.

"Are you sure about that? It might be a bit of a shock, and…"

"Edward. Listen to me. Barring the complete and total extinction of mirrors from our world, I imagine I shall have to enjoy a showdown with my reflection again at some point in the future. Whether that 'shock', as you put it, takes place in five minutes, in five weeks or in five years is not of that much import, is it?"

To give him due, Edward did not attempt further debate, but simply opened a drawer in the dresser and took out a cheap white plastic mirror. It was a two-sided mirror that, V realised, must once have belonged to the lady of the house. Maintaining a neutral expression with some concerted effort, Edward handed this to V, and then retired to the table to busy with decanting the milk.

A minute passed in silence until, eventually, he set the funnel aside with exaggerated care, and capped the bottle he'd been filling. Only then did he glance up at V, and what he saw took him aback. He'd anticipated horror, hysteria, even the slightest gasp of pain from the man. What he hadn't expected to see was this…fascination, this almost besotted interest, as V turned the mirror this way and that, even turning it around to study his distorted features in closer detail in the magnifying mirror.

"Lad?" he said, when he could stand this no longer. V seemed to emerge from a heady reverie, and turned his attention to his host. "Are you all right?" Edward added. V cocked his head, first to the left and then to the right.

"I'm very well," he replied, sagely, "but really, I'd been expecting _far_ worse, to be truthful. No great handicaps. I have kept sight, smell, hearing and taste. As you observe, I'm unlikely to win any modelling contracts but then," he managed a small grin, "I am going to assume that this was probably not the case before the fire, too."

By this time, Nelson had finished the milk, and lay at perfect peace under the table, swiping at a creamy moustache with a steady _flap-flop_ of his tongue. Edward reached underneath and tugged him out, gently but firmly, and fixed V with a curious look.

"I'm going to have to head into town for a few things," he said at length, "but would you like some breakfast before I go?"

"Thank you, yes."

Seated at the kitchen table, V watched with interest as Edward donned a pink apron. Slightly self-effaced, Edward explained that this was a habit that his wife had drummed into him in more than thirty years of marriage. Then, his face almost as pink as his new attire, he sawed a slice of bread from a fresh loaf and trimmed a hole in its centre. This went into the frying pan, where it crackled fitfully for a moment. Presently, Edward cracked an egg into the hole, and flicked hot oil over it with the spatula.

"What's this you're making?" asked V. Edward spoke without turning from the task at hand.

"It's called 'egg in the basket'. Yvonne showed me how to make it," he replied, turning the slice over once the egg had solidified, raising a fresh, hot sizzle. This delicacy was transferred to an earthenware plate, which Edward sat before V.

"This looks splendid," he said, before sampling it carefully. Though V was intimately aware that his tongue and throat were still swollen from the smoke and the charring air of the fire, the slight discomfort of eating was well worth it for the first decent food he'd tasted in…he checked himself. It might well be that he'd _never_ eaten decent food, for all he could recall. Certainly, the mush they'd served him at Larkhill did not qualify. It was perfectly nutritious mush; hadn't he been their star guinea pig, after all? However, this sterling quality was the only one it had possessed.

For his own part, Edward tidied the kitchen in the meantime and, with the occasional furtive glance at his guest, wondered exactly when and why God had paused in His mysterious workings and said to Himself, "This man needs something surreal in his life _right now_." And my goodness, if serving a hot breakfast to a man who looked like something fresh from a Universal Studios horror film didn't fit that description, he had no idea what might.

After breakfast, Edward fetched V a nightshirt from his own drawer, explaining that little else in the wardrobe would spare those burns of V's that still remained uncovered. Then, modesty satisfied, he pulled the reluctant Nelson out of the door, installed him in the farm's tired old Land Rover, and set off for Larkhill and its one rather paltry supermarket. It was not well-stocked, and he doubted that he'd find everything he needed. Under normal circumstances, he'd have made for Salisbury, but, Edward mentally added, these were certainly _not_ normal circumstances, and he would much prefer to be back as quickly as possible.

* * *

><p>V, meanwhile, was quietly exploring the farmhouse. The building was inordinately old, possibly sixteenth century, and jealously guarded many of its original features. These included a sturdy, blackened wooded staircase that creaked quietly but fitfully as he climbed and, at the top, ended in a finial in the shape of – he double-checked this – yes, St. George. He wondered why there wasn't an identical figure at the bottom or, possibly, George's dragon, before deciding that there may well have been such at one time.<p>

The landing was narrow and, as was customary in such ancient structures, low of ceiling as well. V, six feet two in his bandaged feet, barely had clearance. Still, a stained glass window at the far end was capturing and kaleidoscoping the morning sun, trapping it in the window's portrait of yes, once again, St. George.

Four doors opened off the landing. V hesitated in a pure dilemma of ethics and propriety; the kitchen may have been the heart of the house, but these rooms were its soul.

He noticed that one of the far doors was already standing ajar, and made his decision. Approaching it cautiously, he looked through at the room beyond. Thankfully, it appeared to be a workroom of a sort. A sewing machine stood shrouded and idle in one corner, a headless dressmaker's dummy in similar solidarity beside it. Various cross-stitch embroideries hung upon the walls; here a working of Winnie the Pooh, there are pair of budgerigars, here an intricate map of Wiltshire, there a swallowtail butterfly. It was all formless and haphazard and, V considered, quite beautiful in its artlessness. The lady had clearly had a great talent when it came to art for art's sake.

Looking down under his feet, he found another small joy – a hook-rug bearing the pattern of a morose and cartoonish owl. He turned to close the door behind him, wanting to see the whole of the room laid out.

When he saw what lay behind the door, however, everything else fell forgotten, and he simply caught his breath in the back of his throat and held it prisoner there.

* * *

><p>In the town of Larkhill proper, Edward was discovering that his suspicions about the supermarket were bang on course. He went back over his list. Perhaps not too bad, after all; twelve of his fifteen items were checked off. The rest could go hang for the time being – none of it was vitally important, anyway.<p>

He loaded the shopping into the Land Rover, avoiding Nelson, who seemed to believe that the world would come to a fiery end if he didn't lick his master's face, and was just about to drive away when he stopped and swore virulently, getting out of the vehicle again. It was his brother's birthday in a few days; he'd have to send a card straight away. Thankfully, there was a Post Office just across the main road.

Edward waited for a prudent gap in the passing traffic before crossing, realising as he did so that this brought him right alongside the garrison. God, soldiers were the _last_ thing he needed to see right now, his nerves were unravelling with indecent haste as it was. Ducking his head and quickening his pace, he stalked past the garrison gate and on to the small parade of shops.

With a small, satisfied sigh of released tension, he pushed at the door of the Post Office. He knew that Maureen employed some younger staff around the place from time to time but today, the redoubtable lady herself was behind the counter. She beamed at him.

"Hello, Ed, love. What can I get you?"

"Hello yourself, Mo. Just looking for a card. I almost forgot my brother's birthday, I had that bad a time of it last night," he added, knowing full well that Maureen would safely and confidently make her own assumptions about the nature and extent of his nocturnal disturbance, and she didn't disappoint him.

"Of course," she nodded sympathetically. "You're right on top of that blasted detention centre, aren't you?" Maureen stopped, aware, all at once, of the irony inherent in her use of the word 'blasted'. Still, she ploughed on. "Were you out? I know you walk Nelson late of a night."

"I was, but," here he hesitated fractionally, concocting a small lie with a mental agility he'd never suspected he possessed "there was nothing I could do, and nothing they'd have _wanted_ me to do. Whatever went on up there, it's the military's mess, they can mop it up, and to hell with them."

"Too bloody right. Anyway, love, you wanted a card?"

Edward allowed Maureen to select a card for him, with a married man's unerring instinct for those things at which women show a natural excellence. He filled it out and addressed it, and left it behind the counter for Maureen to stamp and send.

When he walked back into the kitchen, Nelson snaking past his legs with puppyish impatience, he found it empty. He paused in incomprehension, passed through and checked the lounge. Empty. He returned to the hall, stood with one hand on the back of his neck in puzzlement, and called out.

"Where'd you get to?"

"Edward," was the muffled reply. Upstairs. Edward mounted the protesting staircase and made his way to the sewing room. Finally, locating V behind the door, he scratched his head, thoroughly bewildered. The lad was gazing at something as if he'd lost his mind, or his heart, or possibly both in one fell swoop.

"Edward, what is this?" he asked, his stare still fixed. Edward glanced behind the door; his memory of what lay where in this room was now patchy, at best. He'd had little cause to come in here since Yvonne died. It had been her sternly defended sovereign territory even when she was alive, he recalled.

"Oh, that? My wife made that for our son when he was a kid. I used to take him out round Salisbury collecting pennies for the Guy." Edward, realising very shortly that he would have to carry the conversation for the time being, pressed onward.

"See, that boy always had an artistic streak in him, even at that age, and he wanted to show all the other kids up, so he had his mum run this up for him. She was a bloody miracle worker with a needle and thread, that woman." Edward smiled fondly, but the gesture played to no audience, or at least to no audience currently prepared to pay him any attention whatsoever.

V was marooned in some faraway land which, for the moment, contained only himself and the thing of beauty before his eyes. The details filled the entire scope and breadth of his being. Someone had created a life-size calico rag doll, and then dressed it in the most exquisite manner possible. It wore a high-necked tunic, britches, flowing cloak and soft leather knee-boots and gloves, all in a dense, velvety black. It bore a fine wig of shoulder length black hair, and a tapering, broad-brimmed hat. However, this wasn't what kept dragging V's attention back, back, and back again.

It was the mask. Amongst this saturnine garb, amongst this ensemble of Erebus, the mask was an angel's face with a demon's smile. Its eyes were creased, frozen in some lascivious pleasure beneath artfully arched black brows. The face bore an obsessively neat moustache and goatee beard, as any self-respecting Elizabethan dandy surely would. This wasn't Guy Fawkes, to be sure, but V recognised that if one wished to romanticise any given image, then it ought to be done with an eye for the artistic and a flair for the dramatic.

"It's wonderful," he said, at last. Hardly adequate, but then, what _would_ be? Edward, merely pleased that his guest was at last displaying signs of life and sanity, took him gently by the shoulder.

"It ought to be, Yvonne was well proud of it," he laughed. "Anyway, come on downstairs. We ought to change those dressings and have a look under'm while we're about it."

V left the room with well-kept reluctance, and played the model patient as Edward carefully peeled back the gauze pad on his back. After a long and tense silence, the lack of comment from behind him prompted V to speak up.

"Is something amiss?"

"Er. That depends on your point of view," was the reply. Edward's voice carried the tiniest suggestion of a quiver. "There are collagen and keratin fibres forming here."

"Is that not a good thing, then?"

"It is, yes, but…" here, he swallowed, hanging onto his composure by a fingernail, "…but overnight? Never seen that before. Never. And never on burns as bad as this."

V remained silent as Edward continued to study the damaged flesh before him. It was all true. He'd tried to reject the conclusion his eyes and his medical training were forcing upon him, but with no sign of success.

A fine spider's web of pink and white gossamer strands, barely visible to anyone who wasn't looking for them, were creeping across the wasteland of melted flesh from the edges of the wound. Almost two inches had formed over the course of the last eight hours, and so – Edward's brain turned over in a brief calculation – at this rate, the lad could expect to have his full complement of scar tissue within seven days at the most.

_Seven days?_

Although malicious cruelty was blessedly rare out here in the country, Edward had once had the unlovely task of treating a tabby cat that had had a Roman candle tied to its tail by some gang of young troglodytes. The animal had spun and danced in its terror, and the firework had whipped against it as it writhed, scorching fur and skin in equal measure from its back and sides. The poor creature had struggled through, though there'd been a few times in those first fraught days that Edward had found himself keeping the barbiturates on standby; concerned, as he was, that all the cat's formidable will to go on wasn't worth the awful agony it was in.

He recalled the injuries well enough. Viciousness of that nature did not fade so easily from anyone's mind, let alone from the mind of one as tender as Edward. The cat's flesh had looked almost as bad as this; purple with exposed muscle, wet with mucus and fluid, and crisped here and there. The beast had spent the better part of a month in his surgery, and at the end of that time, its scars had still been livid pink and brand new.

_A week? Forget it. This is bizarre. This is wrong._

Nevertheless, he realised that no fit purpose would be served by explaining all or indeed any of this to his patient. He was, in all probability, just as deep in the dark about this as Edward himself. Nobody was in charge of their healing processes.

Even so, Edward's hindbrain refused to let things go, and he worried at this mystery and he finished changing the dressings on V's arms and legs, noting, as he did so, the same eerie regenerative process at work there too. Nerving himself to look the other man in the face, he saw the same accelerated regrowth on his forehead and in the hollow of one ruined cheek.

He continued to fret over this development through the rest of the day. He fretted as he walked Nelson, as he fed the animals, as he swirled goat milk curds in the dairy. All the time, his enigmatic patient sat in the kitchen, although now with a stack of books beside him. They'd been Yvonne's; Edward himself was no great reader, aside from a liking for John le Carre. However, the pile of books beside the ancient sofa was nothing like this fare. V had picked them himself from the shelves upstairs. There was Dickens, and Shakespeare, and Dumas. There was a tattered copy of _Robinson Crusoe_ that had belonged to the boy, as well as a similarly foxed copy of _Moby Dick_.

Eventually, Edward's concerns reached a definable and identifiable peak, and that evening, as he prepared some dinner, he turned to his guest, oven gloves held before him in the manner of a defensive shield.

V, for his part, was absorbed in the music pouring from the CD player, which Edward had switched on in a half-hearted attempt to distract himself from any further involved and involving thoughts about anything, let alone frighteningly rapid healing processes. The words of the song enchanted V.

_And it's whispered that soon, if we all call the tune  
>Then the piper will lead us to reason<br>And a new day will dawn for those who stand long  
>And the forests will echo with laughter...<em>

Edward was working on the framework of a question, but he found that V pre-empted him. He'd set aside the copy of _Paradise Lost_ that he'd been poring over, and was gazing at the ceiling, enraptured.

"What's this music?"

"I…oh, that's Led Zeppelin," Edward responded, smiling weakly. Never mind classic literature; classic rock was _his_ particular forte. "Best bloody band ever to grace the face of the planet. This is 'Stairway to Heaven'".

"It's operatic. I like it."

_Operatic?_ Not a word that Edward himself would have employed to describe the mighty Led Zep, but then again, not a word he'd have employed in many other contexts, either. Maybe it wasn't inappropriate, though.

Still, he remained loaded with a question that was scorching a deep hole in his brain and, distractions of great music all aside, he had to get it out and get it asked, right now.

"Lad?"

"Yes, Edward?"

"There's no way of skipping around this," Edward hesitated, and then plunged straight in, "but we both know that you're not healing normally. It's fast. It's so fast, it scares the life out of me. Can you tell me what they did to you in that place?"

A gothic silence descended over the room which Nelson used to apply a lugubrious sniff to the stack of books on the floor. V's gaze swept the kitchen as he considered how best to shape his reply.

"I do not know."

"But you must have some…"

"Oh, yes," V interrupted. "I know that they came, night and day alike, and they dosed me and scanned me and monitored me. They took swabs of the sores on my hands. They dosed me again, _et cetera_." Here he stopped, and rubbed the dog behind one languid ear, while the animal snorted contentedly. "However, if the gist of your query amounts to asking _what_, precisely, they injected me with…do you imagine that they supposed, at any point at all, to tell _me_ that?"

Edward ducked his head, apologetic. The lad was correct, of course. Laboratory rats weren't generally privy to the technical details of the study they gave their lives for. But even so…

V snared the subtext of Edward's line of questioning quickly enough. The man was prickling with apprehension; the room was redolent of his fear. It wasn't the complex, professional fear of a medical man encountering something new and threatening, but the simple, primal fear of infection. It would be better to set this to rest before that fear transubstantiated to outright panic.

"You're afraid that I may be carrying some contagion," he said, evenly. He watched Edward struggle not to back away at the open use of the word and, after a second, win out over this muscular spasm.

"Yes, I am. I'm horribly afraid of that."

"I am not a doctor, Edward, but if it will help to calm your fears, I will relate that for the last two months of my containment, the medical staff wore no masks or gloves in their dealings with me."

Abruptly, the song on the CD player ended and, this time, the silence was absolute aside from a loud, self-indulgent canine belch. Edward, teetering on a nervous precipice, collapsed in a fit of tearful laughter at this eructation.

V grinned too, although bemusedly.


	3. Vendetta

Sergeant Hodge cursed fluently as he set foot in a hidden burrow and, by an acrobatic feat, only just succeeded in escaping a broken ankle. The area around the detention centre – correction, he supplied, make that _former_ detention centre – was a lethal minefield created entirely by rabbits.

Why he, Sergeant Hodge, was here was a complete mystery to him. Quite apart from the perilous ground and the even more perilous state of the ruined buildings, the place was a smoking shell and, furthermore, a smoking shell that should have had nothing whatsoever to do with _him_. Here and now, in a fine drizzle that held every promise of building to a crescendo of hammering water within the next half an hour or so, it was difficult to accept that he was less than three miles from his small but well-ordained quarters at the garrison.

Military Intelligence - contradiction in bloody terms that they were, he thought savagely - had ordered Larkhill's garrison commander to investigate the incident for them. And of course the captain, master and impresario of the noble art of delegation, had suggested that his sergeant might like to take some men and get out and about in the fresh air.

_The place is still fucking burning,_ he reflected, but dismissed it as a minor point of annoyance. Their first priority here wasn't to investigate the wreckage itself, but to search the area for a missing detainee.

Hodge had serious misgivings about that last word, which was why he'd almost instinctively dropped a pair of mental inverted commas around it. Two things were bothering him in equal measure. First was the fact that nobody, out of the very few Intelligence people he'd been in contact with over the last couple of days, seemed too eager to divulge the precise nature of the project that had been under way at the centre. Second concern was the reason behind the Larkhill detainment program; itself, once again, wreathed in hush.

Not that he'd joined the army to ask unnecessary questions, he concluded, but a question or two here and there was perfectly necessary, especially where the safety of his men was concerned.

The basic report he'd been issued with, as filtered through the distinctly selective ears and mouth of his captain, was that all but one of the detainees had perished in the explosions or the resultant fire, but that this sole survivor had fled amongst the chaos. Yes, he was reported to be badly injured and, in all probability, dead somewhere in the surrounding farmland. No, he isn't infected with anything. No, he isn't dangerous. Now hop to it and find the bugger, there's a good sergeant.

_Not dangerous?_ thought Hodge. _Bollocks. No such animal._ He'd served two tours in the Gulf War where, he recalled bitterly, he'd had to organise the repatriation of the remains of two armed men who'd been slaughtered by some crazy Arab bastard with half a brick.

"Pearce!" Hodge bellowed, still eyeing the ruins. A moment later, his corporal appeared at his elbow, snapping to attention, a move that was only slightly spoiled by the fact that Pearce had dropped his foot into the same rabbit-hole that had almost done for the sergeant. On any other day, Hodge might have been in enough of an affable temper to comment upon this, but at a point in time when he could happily spit hot blood at all of his superiors, he let it slide.

"Yes, Sarge?"

"Get on the blower to the captain for me, will you? Tell him we need a few reinforcements out here, pronto. And if that chinless wonder thinks he's going to argue with me, tell him he can be the one to pass it onto Intelligence that we 'mislaid' their slippery little goldfish because we were seriously undermanned. Got all that?"

"Yes, Sarge," Pearce said, and then fetched up his radio; trying, with all due reserve of diplomacy, to translate the sergeant's request into Officer-Speak as he did so.

* * *

><p>Not too far away from this conversation, V laid his arms on the kitchen windowsill and studied the milling goats in the pen across the yard. He'd remained inside the house so far, keenly conscious of the almost immediate presence of the military base and, more to the point, of the fact that if anyone came hunting him - as they were all but certain to - then he might have put Edward at significant risk.<p>

His eyes drifted as his thoughts squirrelled around. If Edward's summary was correct, then he would be fit and well enough to take leave and move on within the next day or so. In point of fact, his energy was spiking already, and the pain of his burns had diminished to a manageable level even without the effects of the codeine, although he thought much better of telling his host this; the man was edgy enough as it was.

Man and dog came into view, the dog's occasional yaps muted through the window. Edward glanced up, and raised a hand to V, before he hefted the bucket of feed and began to sluice it into the trough in the goats' pen. The animals nudged and butted one another gently but firmly to establish a hierarchy around the food, and then sank their noses into it.

The back door clonked as Edward returned, brushing grit from his hands, having as usual to step smartly around the boisterous Nelson.

"How're you doing, lad?" he asked, taking note of the fresh scar tissue now painting itself across V's right brow. It was thicker than it had been just that morning and, furthermore, appeared to be somewhat softer than any such scar he'd ever seen, although the same synthetic shade of baby doll pink.

"I'm well," said V, turning away from his study of the guzzling goats, "but I was dreaming last night." Edward leaned against the door, thrusting his hands into his pockets in thought.

"Am I to assume that's not a good thing, then?"

"I can't say for sure. I was dreaming about things I can't even remember; things I didn't dream about while I was a prisoner." V locked his hands together on the windowsill. "But then I didn't dream much at all while I was a prisoner."

"I'm not surprised. You had your own nightmares to deal with at the time."

"Perhaps."

Edward, all at once, felt as if he'd swallowed a cold cannonball that had pushed a surge of guilt up his throat and into his mouth like bile. He'd taken in an injured man out of instinct, but had almost immediately begun to fear that this action would lead to the unravelling of his security. Selfish, he understood, given that his patient's whole life, his only memories, were now comprised solely of a litany of abuse that had destroyed his childhood, adolescence and family and left nothing in their stead but further abuse.

"Edward?"

"What's that?"

"I'd like to go outside for a while, if I may. I'm afraid I can't offer you any justification than a simple desire for sun and fresh air on my skin, and if you feel it would run a risk for both of us, I'll concede."

It was either a coincidence, or the man was an incredibly talented telepath. Edward realised that there was nothing extraordinary about the request, nothing that he could humanely refuse, particularly given his sudden understanding of basic relativity and the scale of his troubles when set against his patient's. He knew he was already taking a chance by sheltering a fugitive; what more harm could even be done?

"If you like. It'll probably do you a power of good, in fact. Just wait for me to find the right time, yep?"

V nodded, graciously. "Of course," he said.

* * *

><p>The woods around Larkhill were a bohemian ensemble of deciduous beech and silver birch, interrupted here and there by the occasional stubborn grove of spruce. These were a playground for jackdaws, which clattered vigorously but aimlessly in the canopy everywhere they sensed movement below.<p>

All of this tremendous splendour of nature was quite lost on Sergeant Hodge. He had one boot half full of mud already, and this had done nothing to improve his temper; neither had the continuing rain. His two companions seemed to be making much better progress over the difficult ground than he but then, he supposed, they would. They were both half his age.

"Right, you two," Hodge grunted. "There's a farm just up ahead, we'll stop in there and have a word with the owner, find out if he's seen anything." And take the weight off our feet for a bit, too, he added silently. This bloody jaunt might be captain's orders, but nobody said we had to _rush_ it.

He knew the farmer, anyway. The bloke had treated Hodge's wife's cats from time to time. He was a pretty good vet, by all accounts, if a tad morose when the mood took him, and no wonder, either, living out here all by himself.

Edward, glancing up through the window, saw the soldiers opening the farm gate. His heart thumped like a gerbil, and he darted a look at V, who was immersed in reading _Candide_ while Nelson, unassuming as ever, mumbled and dozed at his feet, paws flicking now and then.

"Lad? Get upstairs right now. Hide in the sewing room. Go on."

V had far more sense than to request a detailed explanation; Edward's terror boiled beneath the apparent calm ease in his voice. He simply nodded, and slipped from the room.

Only when the stairs had fallen silent did Edward count to five, wring his hands in a vague attempt to stop them shaking, and open the door.

He recognised the sergeant after a moment's thought. He'd seen the man in his surgery a time or two, in the company of his wife, a very pleasant lady who nonetheless appeared to have far more cats than basic common sense would dictate to be prudent. The sergeant himself barely spoke to Edward, but right now, he seemed affable enough despite the rain that was flickering down on him.

"Afternoon, sir. I'm Sergeant Hodge, this is Corporal Pearce and Private Flynn," he said, waving an airy hand at his companions. "May we come in? I need to ask you a few questions about the recent incident at the detainment centre." Keep quite still, Edward told himself desperately, but he nodded as best he could, and stood aside to allow the men into the kitchen.

"Thank you, sir, nice to have a fire going on a day like this, eh?" the sergeant said. He'd be here all afternoon if he had his way. This kitchen was as comfortable as his slippers. He looked down, and noticed Nelson for the first time. The dog had woken at the sound of the knock on the door, although he was not that easily disturbed from his naps, and had almost immediately settled back down again, eyes crinkled.

Now, he was regarding the soldiers with eerie intensity. Hodge watched, but he didn't see so much as one tiny flicker. The dog didn't pant, blink, sigh or twitch; he merely stared and stared. Hodge, hugely disquieted, was the first to look away, and he had the ludicrous but somehow pervasive idea that the dog knew it had won, somehow. He shook himself, and grinned chummily at Edward instead.

"Would you and your men like a cup of tea, Sergeant?" Edward asked, hoping for an affirmative answer and, thus, the chance to busy himself with something routine. "And please, do sit down."

"That'd be lovely, sir, and thank you." Hodge replied, and parked himself on the sofa. Pearce and Flynn remained standing and, Edward noticed, seemed extraordinarily ill at ease. Join the club, boys, his overstretched brain commented.

* * *

><p>V had left the door between the kitchen and the hall standing ajar, although it wouldn't have been strictly necessary. Over the past two days, he'd been noticing that his hearing had been getting better. <em>Much<em> better. Last night, he'd lain wakeful on the sofa in the kitchen through the night, exploring his surroundings without use of his eyes. He'd heard Edward's snores upstairs, and the shuffle of a mouse or two in the goat shed next door. Exerting himself, he'd even heard a fox panting slightly in the yard outside.

In comparison to this, hearing the voices from the kitchen was simplicity itself, door or no door. There were three newcomers. He'd separated their footsteps easily enough, although so far, only one of them had spoken and, in fact, was continuing to speak. V breathed slowly, and listened carefully.

* * *

><p>"Lovely tea, sir, thank you. Now," Hodge went on, pausing to move a book that he'd inadvertently sat on, "I wonder, could you tell me what you might have seen or heard, the night of the fire?"<p>

At least, thank God, making the tea had given Edward time to avert his eyes and think of a story. He folded a kitchen towel around his hands, and composed himself.

"Not all that much, Sergeant, to be honest with you. I usually walk the dog for the last time around midnight, so I was out in the field on the hill when I saw the fire. I thought I might be able to help, so I cut through the wood. I didn't see anyone, though, and after a bit I decided to go home."

Too trite? Too hasty? Edward had no way of being sure. To his own terrified ears, it had sounded like a mad, disjointed ramble of desperate words, but as he inhaled shakily, he saw that the sergeant gave every appearance of satisfaction with the explanation.

Hodge drained the last of his tea and reached down, absently, to stroke the dog. Nelson ignored the approaching hand, shifted his bulk from the floor with an affronted grunt and flopped down by the fire, well away from the sergeant. Here he dropped his chin on his paws and continued to direct that steady, glassy, thoroughly bewildering stare at the soldiers.

"Thanks for everything, sir," he managed, while tearing his gaze away from the dog's once more, and once more with that peculiar feeling of a battle lost. "We won't take up any more of your time. But if you do see anything unusual, would you please contact our captain straight away?" Hodge scrawled a phone number in his notebook, tore the page out and placed it on the kitchen table. Edward glanced at it, but left it lying just where it was.

"Of course I will, sergeant."

Edward saw the men to the gate and waved them away. Hodge merely set his head against the drizzle and marched off, but the corporal knitted his brows as he directed a short but pointed look back at the farmhouse, and at Edward himself. Then he, too, turned and set off back for the wood.

* * *

><p>Pearce allowed his superior to move ahead, and it was only once they were under the damp cover of the tree line again that he stopped in the lee of a young tree and lit a cigarette.<p>

"Sarge?" he said, softly. Hodge brought himself up short in annoyance, and turned back. "What is it? We're getting pissed on here, in case you hadn't noticed," he pointed out, his tone bleeding sarcasm.

"That bloke was hiding something." Pearce said.

"Oh? Oh yes, Corporal? And what would make you say a little thing like that, pray tell?"

"Couple of things," responded Pearce mildly, the cigarette tucked under his top lip. "One, he told us he hadn't seen anyone. We hadn't actually told him we were _looking_ for anyone. And two, he wasn't curious. Why not? I know for a fact that the civvies round here've gossiped about that place since it was first put up. Here he's got a chance to ask us all about it. He knows we won't tell him, yeah, but he'll ask anyway. Human nature."

Hodge's mouth had twisted itself into a hard, thin line throughout this brief recital. It was all perfectly true, but that wasn't the point at stake. The point at stake was that he shouldn't have needed any of it pointed out by a corporal. He'd been distracted by the tea and by that bloody dog and by the overriding desire to make a botch job of this whole stupid mission and get back to the base.

"All right. It's only a suspicion, mind you, but what we'll do is watch the place for a while and see what happens. You might be right, you might not, you might even turn into a magpie for all I know. So we watch, okay?"

"Okay, Sarge," said Pearce, ditching his cigarette and shooting Flynn a glance.

* * *

><p>The farmhouse remained silent for long minutes after the soldiers had left. Edward very carefully placed the towel on the table, next to the piece of paper the sergeant had given him. Then, lifting back the curtain, he studied the landscape outside for a time. The soldiers were gone, and the rain had finally taken its leave. Across the low, easy valley, above the wood, the sky was gradually cultivating a spreading patch of pale, clear blue.<p>

The door creaked behind him, and he turned to see V re-enter the kitchen.

"Thank you, Edward," he said, softly. Nelson heaved himself off the floor by the fireplace, and waddled over to V, nudging at his hand. V smiled, looking down, and patted the dog's head.

"Don't thank me, lad. I told you that. I just do what's right. You think I'd have handed you over to them?" Edward breathed out. "Anyway, if you still want to go out, I have to take the goats up to pasture. You'll come with me?"

"I would like that, yes," V replied, with a small and decorous bow of his head.

Nelson, usually about as obedient as a rubber ball on a stray ricochet, sat at Edward's heel for once as he unlatched the gate of the goats' pen. There were eight nannies in the pen, and four adolescent kids. They milled about by the gate, blocking one another's way with soft, annoyed bleats, until they had finally emerged into the yard. Then, with a surety borne from long experience of Edward's routine, they headed for the main gate and stood in a gently jostling crowd by the fence. Nelson, who had always fancied himself as a herding dog in spite of the fact that any one of the goats would sooner spit in his eye than obey him, trundled away to attempt to round them up.

Edward was about to set off after his dog, when he noticed that V seemed profoundly distracted.

"Everything all right, lad?"

V had donned a long, hooded coat of Edward's, and his eyes glinted like a chimera's in the shadow of the hood. Now, though, he pushed it back and waved a hand at the pens.

"Are we leaving someone behind?" he asked. Edward followed the line of V's finger, and snorted.

"Good god, yes. That's Lucifer, I don't take him out with the others, he's a bloody menace."

"Lucifer? A name with some deep personal experience behind it, I must presume."

"You presume right, yep."

The billy had reared onto its statuesque hind legs and was directing a venomous gaze at Edward, at its departing harem and, it seemed, at the world in general. V studied Lucifer intently. There was no denying that it was a very handsome animal, with deep-ridged horns that ran a graceful curve back over its neck, a long and satin coat patched with grey, brown and white, and a smooth, cream-coloured Mandarin beard that almost reached its knees. Its slotted golden eyes, however, were suffused with enough abiding animal belligerence for the entire herd and more besides.

Edward, recalling events much later, eventually came to the conclusion that his reaction had been delayed by the sheer, unthinking assumption that _nobody_ could be _that_ stupid. However, so it was that he only stood and stared as V took half a dozen short paces and unlocked the gate of the billy's pen.

Nelson's reaction, gestated in blind reflex, was more immediate; he'd been on the receiving end of Lucifer's breathless, head-down charges once or twice. His ears jerked spasmodically at the sound of the opening gate and then, with just one confirmatory glance at this tableau, darted behind the rest of the herd for some protection.

Lucifer's hooves clacked on the threshold of the gate, and it lowered its horns, bringing their points into play. Edward, by this time, had managed to rouse himself from his horrified trance, and was darting forward to pull V out of the way of more bodily harm than he even dared contemplate.

"Wait," V said, evenly, and there was something so tranquil in that one word, and in the ease of V's stance, that Edward halted in his tracks and cast his eyes at Lucifer.

The animal had raised its head again. This in itself was unheard-of; in the normal course of things, Lucifer's head usually _stayed_ down until some other unfortunate living creature was rolling in pain in the dirt. Not this time, however. It shook its beard, and scraped one hoof, but there was every sign of a grand bluff about its movements and, after half a minute – half a minute that seemed, to Edward, to extend itself to cover many strained hours – the billy took several careful, tottering steps backward and settled itself down onto a heap of straw. V, wreathed in silence, closed and latched the gate once more.

Edward hadn't realised how long he'd been holding his breath until white stars began to pinwheel across his field of vision; now he exhaled with a slight groan.

"You stupid sod," he gasped, at last. "What'd you think you were _doing?_"

"Testing a supposition," V said, briefly, pulling the hood back up again and turning to face the other man. Edward saw the starpoint gleam of those eyes once more in the gloom beneath, and shied from it.

"Well I…" he began, "I just…well, please don't 'test your suppositions' with my livestock again, lad. Got that? That's a bloody dangerous animal. What if you'd been wrong?"

"I apologise, Edward. Truly I do, but I did not hold any belief that I could be wrong."

"Okay." Edward ran a hand through his hair, leaving it stood up at a curious angle on one side. He ignored this. "Let's just get up to the pasture, okay, and we'll say no more about it."

"I thank you. And," V conceded, "I give you my promise that my rash actions are at an end."

Nelson withdrew from behind the herd at last and, seeing that his nemesis was once again contained, directed a small, defiant bark at the pen. Lucifer's slanted eyes swivelled in his direction, and he quietened down, panting apprehensively. Edward nudged the dog with his foot.

"Come on, you," he said, good-humouredly. "Get'm moving."

* * *

><p>From between the trees, Private Flynn watched all of this with some consternation. He hissed over his shoulder to his superior as he saw the goats stream out across the grass.<p>

"Sarge, they're going out. Shall we move in?"

Hodge, loitering in the undergrowth behind, shook his head.

"No," he added. "We'll wait until it's getting dark."

Flynn knew better than to employ the word 'why' at this juncture. It wasn't a word that had much to do with career prospects in the army. He shoved his hands into his pockets, and watched the small party move off up the distant track and, presently, out of his sight.

* * *

><p>The sun had almost dipped below the horizon by the time the three returned to the house. The goats had been left on the hillside for the night and for the next day's grazing; they could, Edward assured V, more than take care of their own in the meantime.<p>

Nelson, his priorities clear, barged past the both of them as the door was opened and flopped down in front of the fire once more. The evening was developing that sharp, coppery tang that promised frost before sunrise, and he wanted to get ahead of the game and get nicely warmed up in advance.

While Edward made them some tea, V returned to the bookshelf upstairs with some of those volumes that he had already finished. He paused in the act of replacing a book on the shelf and turned, catlike, his eyes narrowing with predatory concern, as he heard the strident bang on the back door. He crept to the edge of the landing and stood frozen there, his ears carefully attuned.

Edward wrenched the door back; it was either that or see it broken down, and he knew that the end result would be just the same either way. The sergeant shouldered through, but all trace of his former geniality was lost now. He raised his gun, and motioned to Edward to step back.

"Sorry about this, sir," he said, and something in his voice did indicate that this was the case, "I know you probably did it for the best. But we have to take him in." And you, Hodge quietly added. If we don't take you with us now, Intelligence will come and do it sooner rather than later, and they won't be polite about it, either.

"You do what you have to do, Sergeant, and so will I," Edward retorted, his voice flat, keeping the tremor at bay. Hodge struggled with a brief, potent spear of admiration for the man, but he nodded at his subordinates regardless.

"You two search the house. And you, sir," he turned to Edward now, "you just come with me, and be nice and quiet, okay?"

When their sergeant had left, leading the old man outside on the point of his gun, the corporal eyed Flynn, and pressed a finger to his lips. Then, message understood, he jabbed a finger at the ceiling. Flynn paused, started to mouth a query, but then he heard it too; a tiny creak from the beams, barely even there at all. He nodded in understanding, and the both of them passed through into the darkened hall.

The tenebrous staircase lay straight ahead of them, both the darkness and the silence swirling around it, so tangible they could almost be touched. Flynn glanced at his corporal, but that one glance was enough. He hefted his gun and started up the stairs first, cringing heavily at every squeal from the ancient treads.

The landing was brighter than the staircase, at least; the last pale threads of twilight were creeping into the house through the stained glass window at the far end, although the predominantly red glass of the window lent a distinctly hellish tint to the scene. Four doors met their gaze, all closed, but as they moved towards the nearest, one of the furthest doors swung inward in near silence. Looking at one another with the briefest stab of bewilderment, Pearce and Flynn stepped carefully down the hall.

They had not gone three paces, however, when a figure stepped out into the crimson light, silhouetted against the glow from the stained glass window. Its head was lowered, almost penitent, and it made no further move and it said nothing, nothing at all. Flynn jumped like a mouse on a hotplate, but he brought his gun up nevertheless, and trained it on this disconcerting mannequin.

"All right, mate. Just you stay right there, and get your hands up," he demanded, his voice echoing with a bravado that he suddenly realised he'd left far, far behind, all the way back at the camp where he'd gone through basic training.

The shade ahead of him didn't comply, didn't give any indication that it had even heard him. He spotted the corporal's urgent hand signal out of the corner of his eye, not daring to turn away from this tableau any more than he had to, and edged forward, gun still pointing.

"I said, get your hands up," Flynn repeated, hoping against hope that he wouldn't be given any reason to fire. He felt, with a lurch in his gut, that he already had reason enough. So it was with a stifled sigh of gratitude that he saw the figure raise its hands, smoothly and slowly. So wrapped in relief was Flynn that he didn't see the knife in one of those gloved hands until it was too late.

Some part of him watched this slow-motion dance as the Stygian figure raised its head at last; saw the ivory complexion, saw the black eyes, saw the mocking smile. He saw the figure's arm uncurling. He saw the blade, which gleamed scarlet in the very last ray of sunlight as it flashed across the landing. Then he saw nothing else.

Pearce had been unable to move, unable to raise his gun past Flynn in the narrow passage. Now, as the private gurgled and crumpled at his feet, Pearce let his reflexes take over, and he backed away in terror as he tightened his finger on the trigger.

Not nearly time enough; the figure was already moving, as quiet as a prayer, its cloak swirling and billowing around it like the wings of Belial, filling the passage. Pearce thought he heard a short laugh of triumph, and he raised his gun with a speed born of despair, but there was an abrupt glottal snarl from behind him, and he felt teeth like daggers tighten on his wrist and sink right through to the bone.

Caught between the maddened dog and the angel of death before him, Pearce whimpered just once before a hand tightened about his neck and lifted him from the floor as if he were stuffed with straw. The shadow regarded him dispassionately for a second, head cocked, empty eye sockets colder than a traitor's grave; and then it snapped his neck with one powerful, convulsive twist.

V dropped the body without ceremony and breathed out at last, inhaling his own dusky scent behind the mask, stood amongst the human litter of his endeavours. He stooped, pulled the knife from Flynn's throat with a glutinous tug, and stroked Nelson's head as the dog clambered over Pearce's corpse, his tail lashing furiously.

"This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine," V murmured, turning the sticky blade over and over.

* * *

><p>Hodge was plagued with a spiralling sense of dread. His head flickered back and forth between Edward, who stood by the gate, still held at the end of the sergeant's gun, and the looming, twilit bulk of the farmhouse.<p>

"What the fuck's keeping them?" he muttered, his hands shaking imperceptibly. He reached a fragile decision, and with a sharp command to Edward to stay put, started back towards the house.

He was halfway across the yard when the stained glass window above scythed out into the night, disintegrating into a shrieking cloud, the exquisite rendering of St. George reduced to glittering fragments that poured over Hodge like lethal raindrops. He covered his head desperately, but too late, and one wicked shard sliced his cheek to the bone as V landed gracefully in front of him and swept back his cloak.

"_Jesus!_" Hodge yelled, and swung his gun up once more, but it was knocked from his hand with effortless ease, while a gloved fist slammed into his chest with bone-cracking force, and he felt something vital splinter somewhere inside him. He landed on his back in the gravel, and the spectre swooped on him, one hand pinning him down, the other withdrawing a blood-slicked blade from the recesses of its clothing. Hodge froze, his eyes darting like rabbits. He coughed up a crimson bubble.

"God, please…" he gasped, wanting to focus on the knife, but finding himself transfixed by the beneficent, softly smiling visage above his own, the mask that hinted at human compassion but betrayed nothing but imminent death.

V studied his prone victim, and then leaned down until the mask was all that Hodge could see.

"Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once," he whispered, and then slammed the knife down with cruel speed, running it clean through the sergeant's heart in one stroke. The body bucked once beneath him, and then slumped.

Edward had fallen to his knees, swathed in horror at this mediaeval scene. He kept his head bowed, shivering like a wounded stag, as V appeared before him and offered his hand.

"Edward? They did not harm you?" he asked, his voice soothing. At long last, Edward raised his head. His eyes were wide, and lined with red. Only blind instinct made him reach out and take V's proffered hand, and then climb to his feet, as unsteady as a newborn calf.

"No. No, they didn't," he stuttered, taking several steps back, and almost falling as he did so. V moved forward and slipped a solicitous arm around the older man's shoulders, leading him back to the house.

Nelson circled them eagerly as they entered the kitchen, and V set Edward down on the sofa as gently as if he were handling fine porcelain. The old man ran a hand over his face again and again and again, almost as if this would wipe his memory along with his vision.

"What you did…you…" he said, but V laid a hand on his shoulder.

"What I did was what had to be done. My coming here put you in great danger, but now I have righted that wrong."

Edward looked up at the statuesque figure standing over him, his eyes almost pleading.

"Where are you going to go?"

"To London. A storm is coming, and I must set my sails if I'm to outrun it. There's work to be done." For a moment, Edward thought, V raised his head as if listening to a voice that only he could hear. Perhaps that was indeed the case.

Something urgent caught Edward by the heart, and he rose, and found a notepad and a pen on the dresser. V watched him scribble something, and tear it out.

"Listen, lad," Edward said, his voice preternaturally calm, "Take this. When you get to London, contact my son, he'll help you. He's got good connections. Please?" V reached out and took the slip of paper, quite gracefully, nodding his thanks as he did so. Edward adopted a wry grin, and went on, "Although what he'll think about seeing you in that get-up, I just can't imagine."

Stowing the paper away in his tunic, V laughed pleasantly, and then grasped Edward's hand and shook it. Nelson parked himself at V's feet and pawed his leg, whining softly. V bent and took the dog's head between his hands, and even through the mask, their gazes locked.

"Take care of Edward, my friend," he said, in a low voice that none but the two of them could hear. Nelson lapped his tongue, catching the mask across the cheek, just once. V straightened up, cast a warm look over both man and dog, and then swept out into the encompassing night.

The moon rode the clouds above him as if they were horses, and at the edge of the forest, he paused and extracted the paper that Edward had given him, unfolding it, reading what had been written there. There was a telephone number, and an address, and a name.

_Gordon Deitrich_.

Humming a soft, lilting _adagio_ to himself, V moved on, while the trees whispered at his passing.


	4. Nightmare

For long moments, Gordon wasn't sure what had woken him. He glanced over at the clock, seeing that it was just past two a.m., and was just reaching for his water glass when a faint, satisfied snore brought him back to reality, and to an unfortunate state of partial recall of the previous evening's events.

Although it pained him to admit it, Gordon had to own up to the fact that he'd forgotten this young man's name. The cognac had been an extenuating circumstance, to be sure, and it wasn't as if he made a habit of bringing tipsy young darlings home, even as pretty as this one was. However, the fact remained that he, Gordon, was going to have to find a way to ask his companion for his name without actually _seen_ to be asking.

Draining the water glass and noting, with some surprise, just how warm the room was for the time of year, Gordon studied his bed partner by the glow of the streetlights outside. There was no denying that he was a beauty; though everything was cast right now in shades of sombre orange, Gordon recalled flashes of blue eyes and thick, wild, naturally blonde hair.

He knew that they'd met in Taffeta, the bar just around the corner from the South Bank studios, but aside from that fact, little else was clear through the hangover. God alone knew that flirting alone was risk enough for a gay man in these times, let alone allowing oneself to knock back enough French brandy to enter that state where a – he quailed slightly at the term – one-night stand seemed like a fabulous idea.

_Oh well, _Gordon concluded. _What's done is done, but I'd better be a tad more discreet about showing him out the door than I was about showing him in._

Over-confidence, that was the problem. Gordon wouldn't normally have been in the bar on a weekday night, but for the fact that he'd had some news very well worth toasting. Magnavision had not only renewed his contract for a further four years, but had also invited him to host a new Sunday evening chat show. A signal honour for any aspiring TV mogul, let alone one of Gordon's comparatively tender years.

He wiped a light coat of sweat from his forehead, and was just about to lie back down to chase the rest of the night's sleep when the doorbell rang.

Gordon jumped, both figuratively and literally, sitting bolt upright with his heart knocking an uneven tattoo against his breastbone. Panic curdled the blood in his arteries, but he managed to formulate a half-hearted plan of action, and shook the young man beside him.

"Wake up, come on," he muttered urgently, "there's someone at the door."

The lad must have caught some of Gordon's itchy, infectious terror, because he rolled out of bed at once and grabbed for his clothes, pulling them on with a limber grace that Gordon, even in his agitation, found a moment to envy and admire. Then, this inappropriate pang past, he led the way out of the bedroom and down the darkened stairs to the kitchen.

As the doorbell rang once more, Gordon's nervous system jangling along with it, he opened the back door, hissing, "Go through the gardens, nobody'll see you. Go on, I'll deal with this..."

The young man took to his heels with indecent haste, leaving Gordon to close and lock the back door, leaning on it, his robe clinging to his back where fear had raised a fresh pall of cold sweat. The doorbell rang for a third time, and he started wildly around the kitchen as if he had never seen it before, as if it were something threatening. Then he grabbed a carving knife from the block, the blade making an accusatory hiss as it was withdrawn from its sheath. Then, the steel ice cold against his hot palm, Gordon crossed the kitchen on legs that felt as though they were made of damp paper.

The hall was secluded in gloom; the fanlight over the door allowed a second-hand ochre light to enter, but no more than that. Gordon's hand was halfway to the light switch when he reconsidered, his movement stayed by some sub-cerebral sixth sense. Instead, he applied his eye to the spy-hole.

This didn't clear matters up to any great degree. The figure outside was little more than a silhouette, although the wash of the street light on the far side of the road created a fine nimbus around its head. For one catastrophically insane moment, the word 'halo' flickered through Gordon's mind like a small bird and then, as the bell sounded yet again, he placed one sweat-soaked palm on the latch and opened the door.

The visitor raised his head, and Gordon felt his breath catch in his throat just as fast and as surely as if it were barbed. He heard his name spoken in a voice as smooth as glass, but only barely so.

Much later, when he was in a halfway fit state to do so, Gordon tried to piece together his initial reaction in terms of its constituent parts. First and foremost, there was a swelling of bladder-wrenching terror. Second, the undeniable punch of recognition; it was very far from a stranger on his doorstep. It was a face he'd known for the best part of twenty-five years.

Thirdly came the sense of some major slippage in reality, and it was this, more than the other fragments of his gut reaction, that sent Gordon back a step. He'd seen this figure, this visage, this very creature almost every day of his life as a child, but it had never spoken, never drawn a breath, ever stepped unaided over his threshold or anyone else's. Yet all of this it was now doing.

It was only animal panic that caused Gordon to do what he proceeded to do next. He tried to close the door but as swift as that jolt of fear was, the stranger was swifter. One gloved hand smacked into the wood, and then Gordon heard his name addressed once more.

Still in the grip of the electric current of terror, Gordon brought the knife up from where it had hung at his side but, once more, proved laughably slow when set against the stranger's reflexes. His wrist was gripped left-handed, in a grasp that was gentle but insistent. Even so, he struggled, and at this he heard a sibilant sigh of exasperation. Then the shadow delivered a cracking blow to his temple, and Gordon Deitrich was, for a time, lost to the world of men.

* * *

><p>Gordon awoke to sounds, textures and scents before his vision consented to return. There was the faintest of creaks; the sound of a leather glove being removed. He was aware of someone leaning in close, so close that he felt soft, silken hair brush his cheek like an exploratory moth, and then cool, rough fingers probed deftly beneath his jaw, searching for a pulse.<p>

This processed, Gordon caught the merest hint of some sweet, mingled scent. It was the most enchanting combination of leather, rich, dark wine and some unidentifiable yet heady musk. A cold, damp compress was laid across his burning forehead, and then this beguiling presence retreated in complete silence.

Finally recovering some semblance of control over his muscles, Gordon struggled to sit up. This action brought him no reward other than a fearful pound and thump in his head and, despite his bewilderment, he sank back down with a gasp of supreme endurance.

A voice finally filtered through his sufferance, a voice so measured and so urbane that for a moment he had cause to wonder whether he hadn't imagined it.

"You're awake," it said, not stating the very obvious, more proposing this sally by way of a greeting.

"What the hell happened?" Gordon managed, at some length. His voice sounded broken, even to his own ear.

"I was forced to hit you," the stranger replied, his voice decked, indeed, with regret, "and for that I must apologise most sincerely. However, you were...overwrought, and that is not conducive to the civilised conversation that you and I must conduct."

At this point, Gordon ran his tongue over his lips. They felt drier than sand. He tried to speak again and managed some semblance of communication, but he could not decipher the congealed syllables himself, and thus had no reason to believe that the stranger could either. As if in counterpoint to this, however, that soft voice went on.

"I would like you to note," it said, the essence of tranquillity, "that your home has not been ransacked and that you have been neither injured nor incapacitated beyond that which our initial misunderstanding rendered necessary. I would hope, therefore, that you extract from these facts the conclusion that my purpose here is not nefarious."

At last, creeping back my increasing degrees, Gordon recovered the main part of his eyesight, and he turned his head as best his prone position allowed. The stranger – Guy Fawkes, his addled consciousness supplied, somewhat hysterically – was seated in an armchair on the far side of the room, his fingers steepled beneath his chin in the deepest contemplation, the only clear part of him that impassive, glossy white countenance. The overhead light was off but, while Gordon had been unconscious, the stranger had lit several candles and placed them on the coffee table between them. These low, dancing flames left particularly deep lagoons of shadow beneath the mask's brows, ensuring that its eyes loomed larger and more brooding than ever before.

The mask was...different. It wasn't the candlelight, or the overbearing oddity of the context, or even the silence that appeared all the deeper for the fact that now, the mask lay silent from choice and not from necessity.

It was the inclusion of vitality. In some esoteric manner, the mask seemed to have taken on a persona of its own now that life itself lay behind it. Its eyes, shrouded as they were, nonetheless had a spark to them. Its cheek, once merely painted, now appeared delicately flushed instead, and its smile had been transformed from the acceptable faint humour of a death's head to a genuine grin of good spirits.

Grasping at the sofa, at his aching head, Gordon sat up as elegantly as a newly born lamb. There was a whisper as the stranger rose and crossed the room, the candle flames jittering in the gentle wash of his passage. Gordon felt a hand laid on his shoulder, but this was in the interest of assistance rather than restraint. He nodded his thanks, and then cleared his throat with some difficulty.

"Who are you?" he croaked, and then coughed again. The stranger turned away for a second, then handed Gordon a glass of blessedly cold water and two aspirins. This done, he retreated to the far side of the room and settled himself back down in the armchair like a nesting raven. At long last, and only after he had stilled himself, did he reply.

"You may call me V," he said, evenly. Gordon paused, the glass at his lips, and then took a long swig of water.

"That's it? That's your name?" he asked.

"It is not a name as such, Mr. Deitrich," V corrected him, "it is more in the nature of an entitlement. I have no face save the one I have chosen to adopt. I have no garb of my own, no past to lay claim to. This is anonymity at its highest calling. Should I spoil the masquerade with a name?"

V laced his fingers at this point, and once again Gordon caught that hushed hiss of leather. The sound was distracting out of all proportion to its volume. Nevertheless, he rallied somewhat.

"But do you _have_ a real name?" V laughed gently at this, although this expression was quite devoid of reproach.

"Doubtless I do, although due to the vagaries of circumstance my name, whatever it may have been, is now as much an enigma to me as it is to you. I do not mourn its loss."

Gordon climbed to his feet, swaying a little in the process. V shifted, catlike, ready to assist him, but Gordon waved a hand to indicate that he had his balance under reasonable control. He paced to the window, lifted the curtain back a fraction, and peered out into the world for a second, his eyes flicking to and fro like caged mice. Then, dropping the curtain back into place, he turned around with one hand plastered to the back of his neck, vaguely aware that it was coated with a tacky layer of drying sweat.

"The big question...V," Gordon ventured, tasting his words as they emerged, "is this. What do you want with me?"

"For the time being, Mr. Deitrich, I have but one small request: please call your father." V held up one admonitory finger as Gordon started to interrupt, and then continued.

"I am aware of how surreal all of this must seem, believe me. However, there are some matters that only your father can explain to you. You know me, Mr. Deitrich. My face has been a part of your life since you were a small child. Please do this one thing for me, and contact your father."

The candles shuddered violently as V stood, shaking out his cloak before drawing it down over his shoulders.

"I shall leave you alone. I will return at sunset, by which time I hope you have the information you require to form a decision."

Gordon accompanied V to the door, and stood in a light, chilly pre-dawn breeze as V passed him by. He paused, however, on the top step, and turned back. Gordon found his face less than one inch from that angelic mask; so close, in fact, that for one heartbeat he swore he saw the twin glints of V's eyes behind the fine black mesh.

"I would like you to bear in mind," V said, his voice now no more than a tender purr, "that when this door closes, you are beholden to nothing. I came to your home with a request, not a command. However, that said, it must be stated that it is I who am beholden to you...and to your mother, and to your father, and to Nelson too. Farewell."

As much as he longed, in one part, to slam and lock the front door as soon as he had the opportunity to, some power kept Gordon watching as V descended the flagged stone steps and drifted out of sight behind the yew hedge, a suggestion of deeper shadow in the watery blue light of approaching sunrise.

* * *

><p>It was not until the afternoon drew around that Gordon recovered the majority of his composure, although he understood that the blame for this vacuity could be laid in equal part on the peculiar events of the previous night and on the resultant lack of sleep. He had spent over and hour and a half on the phone to his father, and had been only mildly surprised that Edward did not appear to have been asleep when the call came.<p>

The details of the story he'd received during that tempestuous phone call were rattling around in his brain like loose change in a pocket, and producing the same discordant notes as they did so. A fire. A man who healed at four times the normal rate, and who had a potent and eerie influence over the world's most vile-tempered billy goat. The Guy Fawkes costume. Three dead soldiers buried in the old cowshed.

It was this last statement that kept repeating like the echo of a gunshot. Try as he might – and, God knew, the trying was traumatic enough – Gordon could not picture his own father digging three makeshift graves in the packed earth beneath the cowshed floor, much less turning a corpse into each one and then covering them over.

Through all of this cardinal horror, however, one aspect of the conversation could not possibly have been eluded: Edward's voice was perfectly calm and reasonable. He had spoken not coldly, merely as a matter of fact, telling his tale without either embellishment or omission.

Edward had finished his account of the last several days on a confession of apology. He was sorry, he told his son, that he had given V Gordon's name and presumed upon his kindness. These words, as genuine as they were, nevertheless ran a chilly rapier through Gordon's guts.

_Beholden to nothing?_ Of course he was, and it appeared very much as if he'd found himself in this position through no act of his own which was, he was forced to admit, something of a rare happenstance. It wasn't as if he hadn't found himself in difficulty enough in his younger years, even avoiding several close encounters with the police and, on one regrettably memorable occasion, suffering a broken nose for his pains in breaking up a drunken fight during his days at university.

Still, all this aside, Gordon had very little, as of yet, to subject to consideration. V had not made any request of him save for the one that he'd already fulfilled. Sunset, however, was just a few hours away, and he was beginning to suspect that, when the time came, he'd be doing his thinking on his feet.

"Hello? Earth to Gordon?"

Gordon set his teacup down with a sharp bang that started both himself and his assistant and sent a small, warm wave over the papers on his blotter.

"God," he muttered, pulling a fistful of tissues from the box on his desk and dabbing ineffectually at the puddle, "God, sorry, Anne. I really was a thousand miles away..." He stopped, and threw the bundle of sodden tissues into the bin.

Anne regarded Gordon fondly for a second. She was old enough to be his mother and, in certain respects, had unconsciously adopted this mantle when Gordon's own mother had died some three years previously.

They'd been working together for five years now, ever since Gordon secured his first job with Magnavision, presenting afternoon children's' TV. In that time Anne had tactfully shepherded the ambitious if unpredictable young man through rough and smooth, thick and thin, had averted the worst of his occasional drinking bouts and had even had him weep on her shoulder when, during one such alcoholic excess, he'd woefully blurted out the matter of his homosexuality. There was little room left, she felt, for coyness between them.

"Gordon, what's the matter?" she asked, her tone heartfelt. "You look as if you haven't slept in days."

"I had a bad night last night," Gordon said, through a jaw-cracking yawn. "Probably the weather. Didn't you find it awfully stuffy last night?" Anne recognised an attempt at misdirection when she heard it but, knowing very well how to pick her battles, forbore to push the matter, at least for the time being.

"It was, now you come to mention it," she agreed. "But look, it's almost half one. I suggest we head over to Starbucks for some espresso and a bit of lunch. That'll put the fizz back, okay?" As much as Gordon normally detested patronising such corporate megaliths, he was currently in no shape to gainsay the suggestion, and merely nodded wearily.

* * *

><p>It would have interested Gordon if he had known that, as he and Anne walked through a light but bitter shower of rain to find some lunch, they passed right over the Piccadilly Line and not forty metres from the rat-haunted alcove where V dozed, curled into a tight foetal ball.<p>

A train thundered past this impromptu lair, making the thin steel door vibrate on its hinges. V paid it scant attention; he was discovering that sleep was coming to be an optional extra of sorts, and something that he could easily do without for long periods of time.

He was naked where he lay. Not wanting to crease or dirty what was, for the moment, the only set of clothes he had in the world, he'd wrapped the costume in a dust sheet he'd found on the platform and stored it carefully within a small niche in the wall. The mask was propped against this bundle. Under any other circumstance, to any other man's eye, it would have been all but invisible in the near-perfect darkness, but V saw everything in shades of pink and crimson. The curve of its jaw, the lift of its brow, its seraphic smile, its hollow eye sockets. He oscillated between light sleep and watchfulness while all the time this visage – his visage – regarded him blindly.

The floor of the alcove was firm, condensed earth, smooth enough to the touch, and thankfully cool. The wall against which he lay was rough, brushed concrete, but the fibrous scar tissue on his back was more than proof enough against any discomfort this might otherwise have engendered. He bared a lopsided smile in the gloom at this irony; to think that there could ever be any saving grace in incurring such ghastly wounds.

A scuffling had him turning his head up for a second, and then V found himself all but nose to whiskers with a large, hunchbacked brown rat. His cloudy blue eyes found its glittering black ones and, for an eternity of moments, man and rodent studied one another coolly. Then, moving as slowly and deliberately as continental drift, V stretched out one hand, fingers extended toward the rat. Its muzzle buzzed as it sniffed at the proffered digits, but it made mo move either back of forth and appeared to display not one fragment of fear.

Still moving with the grace of a dancer, V sat up, angling his hand now so that it lay palm up on the cold ground. The rat uncreased its back now, and moved forward a little, its tail sliding through the dust and leaving a sine wave behind it. Then, cocking its ears, it stepped onto V's hand, hesitated only fractionally, and scampered up his arm.

V ignored the pricking of tiny needle claws at his skin, and turned to face the rat as it reached his shoulder. He smiled once more, conscious of the way the muscles on the left side of his face were somewhat slow to respond. Nevertheless, the rat paid no heed to this deficiency and simply applied a small, hot lick to the corner of V's mouth before beginning to groom itself industriously.

V's gentle laugh echoed within his noisome crawlspace before it was drowned beneath the roar of another passing train.

* * *

><p>Gordon arrived home just after sunset, weighted down by a stack of schedules and scripts. He juggled these out of the back of his car, and had almost reached the top step when the pile began to slide. He grabbed desperately at the papers, and then loosed a small shriek as V stepped out of the shadows of the porch to lend a hand.<p>

V, picking up a sheaf of paper and handing it back to Gordon, saw the small pulse flickering at the man's throat, and realised that he'd caused him no small alarm.

"I did not mean to startle you, Mr. Deitrich," V said, head bowed, apologetic. "May I be of some assistance?"

"No, thank you," Gordon mumbled, his heart still skipping a beat every now and then. He turned over his shoulder. The house was set well back from the road behind thick yew hedges, and the porch itself lay in a decent pool of shadow, but he nevertheless felt precariously exposed. "Let's go in," he added. V nodded shortly, stepping aside to allow Gordon to unlock the door.

It wasn't until they were inside, and Gordon was turning the bolt and drawing the security chain across, that the atmosphere between the two simplified somewhat. Only somewhat, though, Gordon reflected. He was still painfully aware of the business that remained to be negotiated and, with V stood behind his shoulder like an accursed shade, that business was proving intolerably difficult to ignore.

Still, in a plain testament to his basic courage of character, Gordon turned to face his visitor, arms folded defensively. In the murk of the hallway, little could be seen of V besides the mask and, at that, the brim of his hat cut out a crescent of shadow. Thus it was that the only thing Gordon could make out, in the gloom, was that gently smiling mouth. At this point, V removed his hat and set it aside, although this was only the most marginal of improvements.

Gordon led the way into the living room, turning on the overhead light as he did so, purely as a matter of reflex. He was rewarded, however, with a sharp hiss of indrawn breath behind him, and he spun around to see V flick the switch once more.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm sorry," said V, his head shaking infinitesimally. "My night vision is gaining strength by the day, but I am finding that it has come at a price."

Nodding his understanding, Gordon crossed to the table lamp in the corner and lit that instead. This seemed agreeable to V, who removed his cloak and folded it neatly over his arm like a _maître_ _d'_ in some extraordinarily arcane restaurant before laying it over the back of a chair.

"I've spoken to my dad..." Gordon began, and then entered a long pause, still unsure as to how he intended to finish the sentence, "...and what he told me led me to understand that I've got no choice here."

"A free man always has a choice, Mr. Deitrich," said V, quite without rancour.

"_Please_ call me Gordon. The only 'Mr. Deitrich' I know is my father. Anyway," Gordon continued, perching himself lightly on the arm of the sofa, "what I mean to say is that I've only got one choice that I can actually live with. You understand?"

The mask dipped as V angled his head, indicating agreement, and Gordon was struck with the irrational idea that, as absurd as it sounded even in the privacy of his own mind, its expression had altered in that instant.

"I have put your family in enough danger as it is," V said eventually, "and I would like you to understand that this grieves me and, were it possible, I would not have done so. However, my need is such that I came as a petitioner, first to your father's door, and now to your own."

V moved out of the shadows by the door now, and into the mellow if meagre circle of lamplight. The ascetic cast this lent his frozen features was chilling. Gordon shifted uneasily.

"I want to thank you for saving my dad from those soldiers," he said, softly.

"I believe we are both well aware that it was I who placed him in that situation to begin with."

"That's true," Gordon countered, "but nevertheless. However, since it appears we're being brutally honest with one another, I have a confession."

"Yes?" V prompted, smoothly, as Gordon paused to wring his hands first one way and then the other, before clasping his fingers so tightly that his knuckles creaked.

"You frighten me, V. You scare the living daylights out of me. I want to be clear, though, that that's not a personal remark." Gordon dropped his head and stared at his own hands as he went on. "What I'm afraid of is what you represent. If everything my father told me is true, and I've no reason to believe that it's not, then we're all in more trouble than I care to contemplate."

When Gordon raised his head again, V was standing before him. In the wash of subdued light, he seemed impossibly tall and gaunt, both indecipherable and implacable, like the judge, jury and executioner at the trial of humanity. For one second, Gordon was reminded of Anubis, and wondered if his own heart might or might not outweigh a feather. Then this image flared and died in his mind, and in the spiral of coruscating sparks that it left behind, he gestured at the chair opposite.

"Please have a seat," he added. He waited until V was settled, then licked his lips nervously before continuing.

"I'll help you," he went on, aware as he did so of the click of some mental ratchet slotting into place, indicating a point of no return. "You'd better tell me what you need."

Gordon listened very carefully as V proceeded to speak.


	5. Refuge

The very next day, Gordon headed out into yet another chilly flurry of rain, safeguarding his umbrella as best he could against the regular blasts of wind that assailed him from random directions. He'd left V asleep in the spare bedroom, with a blanket pinned over the window to bar those rays of sunlight that the curtains might not field.

At V's request, he'd not entered the room once his guest had retired for the night but, just before dawn, Gordon swore he'd been woken by a guttural shout from across the upstairs hall. He'd missed that first outcry, still half-snared in sleep as he was, and had heard no further emissions of such ferocity, although for a minute or two he'd listened as V subsided into a jumble of words that might have been Italian, or Latin, or possibly an admixture of both. Either way, they were utterly untranslatable, and had eventually tailed off.

After this small revelation that, unfortunately, had not been as revelatory as all that, Gordon had blacked out again until his alarm woke him an hour later. He'd breakfasted alone in spite of a gnawing in the pit of his stomach that gainsaid a healthy appetite, then made a fresh cup of tea and take it upstairs.

With one knock on the bedroom door, which was not acknowledged, he left the cup on the table by the door and then drew the curtains at the end of the corridor so that V might be able to retrieve it in comfort. He'd then sighed deeply and shakily and left the house on his particular errand.

It was almost two miles to the estate agent's office, a pleasant enough walk in late spring or summer but little short of a Calvary in weather such as this. Nonetheless, Gordon didn't trust himself behind the wheel of a car at that particular point in time. Also, he felt that this cold slap in the face was what he needed, both to wake him up and to gain some small perspective.

Matthew Bright looked up and smiled as Gordon appeared in the office doorway, rattling his umbrella like a wet dog before dropping it just inside the door.

"Gordon," he beamed, rising from his desk to greet his client, "always a pleasure. What can I do for you? Cup of tea? Rotten weather, eh?"

Gordon agreed that this was indeed the case, then drew one slow hand down his cheek, noticing a bitter sting under his eyelids as he did so.

"No tea, thank you, Matt. I'll get right to the point," he said, the quiver in his throat and lungs belied by the unexpected firmness of his tone. "I want you to take the Walker Hotel off the market. As of right now," he added.

Matthew was taken aback by this; so much so that he actually retreated a step in confusion.

"What?" he stuttered, before his training came to his aid. "Can I ask why? You of all people know that we've finally had some interest in the place and, besides, I thought you were desperate to get shot of it. I've just had a bid of two hundred and eighty grand and for a renovation project of that size, let me tell you that's a very generous offer."

It was at this point that Gordon flushed. All matter of his sexuality aside – and he understood that it was fast becoming a matter of naked self-preservation to conceal that fact – he had never been at home with duplicity. He knew that lies eventually needed a scaffold of more lies, and so on, until one stood atop a house of cards in a high wind. Given this, he elected to try for a simple omission rather than an outright untruth. Also, the bare fact was that he'd had neither the time nor the mental strength to compose a cover story.

"I know, and I really am grateful for all your help. However, I have a few good reasons that I'd like to sit on this sale for a while."

"All right," said Matt, his hands in the air between them, surrendering. "You know your own mind, of course, although these bidders aren't going to be very happy. There's no legal contract yet, of course, so you are at least in the clear." Matt thought for a fraction of a second before adding, "They did seem very keen."

"That just goes to show you, then," Gordon said, his eyes twinkling happily. "If they were eager for that old wreck, they're barking mad, and I hate dealing with mad people outside of working hours. Anyway, is there anything you need me to sign right now...?"

"Just a few things. If you're absolutely sure?" Matt asked, still probing gently for any sign of uncertainty in Gordon's decision. He found none, however. Gordon simply nodded tartly.

"I'm sure," he said.

* * *

><p>Later that evening, with the sun already a distant memory printing its ghost across the western horizon, Gordon drove the five miles to the Victoria Station area with V huddled on the back seat, his cloak drawn over his face.<p>

This was an understandable precaution; though the chances of a random stop and search were slim, and rendered slimmer still when one understood that the police, in their breathtaking selectivity, were highly unlikely to regard a man in a custom-built Jaguar as a potential terrorist, Gordon nevertheless felt much more secure with his passenger laid low and suitably concealed.

They arrived at the Walker Hotel, such as it now was, just before seven. It was a stunning edifice, built in the grand days of rail travel to serve those wealthy travellers who required time to rest and recuperate in the arms of luxury before continuing their journeys to the south coast and to such jewels of Victorian society as Brighton, with its gorgeous Royal Pavilion.

The years had, alas, extracted their toll in measure of the Walker's glory and grandeur; as trains became faster and more comfortable, as cars replaced what the railways could not and did not hope to provide, the hotel had fallen first into disrepute and then into decay.

It had been closed for four years when Gordon purchased it for an alarmingly low investment cost, and he had spent several days exploring the building to be sure that there were no astounding structural defects that might explain its bargain price. He had even, in the end, retained an independent surveyor to appraise matters, but the man had pronounced the Walker to be healthy, if profoundly filthy and decrepit.

The hotel, though connected to the mains, also operated from a generator in the basement as and when required and, for this, Gordon was now grateful. He would much rather not go into the intricacies of reconnecting the power supply to the hotel, much less face the questions that this might raise.

He'd headed to the first level basement by way of a torch fetched from the boot of his car, although he'd recalled the matter of V's owl-like night vision and allowed the haunted, cloaked figure to lead the way after a while. After a pause to grind the generator into submission, Gordon applied the lights in the basement. They were low enough down here, and Gordon heard a tiny grunt of satisfaction from beneath the mask at the reduced illumination.

There was little enough to see in the basement beside the generator and the old coal chute, so they descended the two flights of steps to the wine cellar. This, in complete and startling contrast to what lay above it, was an imposing vaulted and pillared cavern of a size that fulfilled every promise of the once-palatial structure it served, and must once have provided a happy home for more than four thousand bottles of delightful vintage and their associated tools and activities.

This cellar was all but empty now save for the massive wine racks. The remaining bottles had been one particular aspect of his purchase that Gordon had had no trouble selling off, although it had puzzled and continued to puzzle him as to why the hotel's previous owners had left them behind to begin with.

Still, there was rarely any mileage in subjecting good fortune to overly critical analysis, and he'd sold six hundred bottles of wine for just over forty thousand pounds in total, although he'd quietly reserved a dozen particularly choice years for his own kitchen.

The furniture upstairs had been a very different matter. Though surprisingly untouched by woodworm, it had all nonetheless lain in a cold and unremittingly damp atmosphere for the past several years, and as a result was now in a state most generously described as 'functional'.

Gordon, brought around to this fact by his own stream of consciousness, made mention of the furniture to V, who indicated his agreement.

"If you like," Gordon ventured, "I'd suggest using what's in the rooms on the south-west side of the hotel. Not that it'll make a tremendous difference, you understand, it's just that those rooms will have stayed a little warmer and drier than the others." Gordon reached into his pocket and pulled out a surprisingly small bunch of keys, handing them over.

"Here. I'll keep the spare set just in case you need it, but," he said, conscious of V's desire for privacy, "I promise I won't use them unless I have to. You've got the keys for the main doors," he said, pointing out various keys as he spoke, "the service entrance, the side doors, and this one's a skeleton key that'll open any of the guest bedrooms.

"Oh. I almost forgot to mention," Gordon added, raising a distracted hand to his forehead. "I left some food in the kitchen yesterday; there's plenty there and it ought to keep for a while. And I turned the water back on, although I simply can't vouch for the state of the plumbing, I'm afraid."

It was only now that the two men felt the floor beneath their feet buzz faintly, and a subdued, echoing rumble filled the cellar for a few seconds. V raised his head elegantly, although Gordon couldn't help but observe that there was also something rather primitive about his stance for that one second, as if he were a wild animal searching for the scent of a predator...or, indeed, the scent of prey.

"Don't worry about that," Gordon spoke up. "We're almost directly alongside the Circle Line down here. You'll soon get used to it." V said nothing in reply; he merely continued to cast his gaze around the cellar as if forming plans in his head as he turned, and as if unaware that Gordon had spoken. Perturbed, but still wanting to disrupt this sudden silence, Gordon went on.

"By the way, I've been thinking. About your light sensitivity?" he ventured. "What you need are some polarised lenses. I could get them fitted for you tomorrow at the studio, that'd be no problem, but...um, I'd need to take the mask with me."

He worried, then, that he'd said something dreadfully insulting. He saw V's back stiffen perceptibly before the man swung around and took a small step closer, boots scraping very loudly and suddenly on the dusty flags of the floor. Then he smiled, and this was not quite illusion; Gordon was rapidly becoming attuned to the signs of V's changes in humour. He wasn't completely sure what it was – maybe nothing more than a particularly strong aura – but whatever it was, V exuded a tangible cloud of personality that even projected itself onto the steel mask he wore and seemed to mutate its expression to reflect his mood.

But of course," V said, gently, "and I must thank you for your assistance." Then he turned his back on Gordon once more and reached up to the back of his neck to unfasten the straps. This done, he placed his hands at the sides of his face and slid the mask down, gently and infinitesimally, and then dropped his arm so that it hung at his side, the mask held between finger and thumb.

Gordon held his breath for a second, taking in every small detail of this tableau as he moved closer. He could see V's shoulders rising and falling as he breathed, and this was odd, given that he'd never observed this intensity before. He wondered whether the man was feeling both physically and emotionally exposed now that he was unmasked, even with his back turned, and decided that though he might think for a century, he'd never truly understand the position that V was coming from.

As he heard Gordon come up behind him, V dropped his chin onto his chest so that the wig fell in glossy black curtains across his face. There was something so heartbreaking about the vulnerability that this bespoke that for an instant, Gordon thought to lay a comforting hand upon V's shoulder. He eventually dismissed the idea, and simply reached out to take the mask.

It was unexpectedly warm to the touch, which proved surprising given that Gordon's only prior experience of V's skin, when those scarred fingers had been seeking his pulse, had shown it to be cooler than living human flesh had any right to be.

"Thank you," Gordon whispered, so close now to V that he could detect that maddening, lovely scent once more. Then, clasping the mask to his chest, he forced himself to retreat and, eventually, to turn around so that he could mount the stairs back up through the cellars, past the kitchens and into the foyer. All the way, he kept the mask pressed against him, conscious of its strange heat and of the way it seemed to be taking time to fade.

Down in the bowels of the hotel, V pricked his ears carefully as he heard Gordon leave by the side door, locking it behind him. Only then did he ease his stand and relax fully, brushing his hair away from his face, before hefting the keys he'd been given and looking up at the ceiling, a speculative smile surfacing.

* * *

><p>Gordon's day proved itself to be distressingly busy; he spent most of the morning proofreading in his office, with only the occasional tactful interruption from Anne, who kept up a reliable flow of tea and shortbread. At one point he'd asked her for a brandy but, beneath the flame of the sudden reproachful glare she turned on him, he'd wilted.<p>

"Gordon Deitrich," she said, her voice metamorphosing into the epitome of affronted motherhood, "Far be it from me to dictate what you do on your own time, but while you're under my care I'll be buggered if I let you start boozing." She stopped, and snorted in derision. "It's not even eleven o'clock yet, for heaven's sake..."

"I might be dead now if it wasn't for you. I know that. I am grateful, Anne"

"Is that so?" she retorted, although now through a small smile. "You don't sound it. But here," she continued, now sitting down and pouring herself a cup of tea. "Put that stuff away for a minute and talk to me. I know damn well something's wrong with you and I'm not going to ignore it again. What's up?"

Gordon knew the signs. Anne very rarely pushed him for a confession on any given subject, knowing as she did that he would eventually get around to it on his own. The fact that she broke this rule only rarely was an indicator of how seriously she took it, and if she was insisting upon a dialogue right here and right now, it was for a sterling good reason.

Anne, for her part, gazed gently into Gordon's eyes for a second and saw, deep within them, the assurance that he wasn't going to give in. Not this time. However, she felt that she had to do her duty by him and if that meant applying a little pressure, it was for his own good.

"What is it?" she persisted. "Man trouble?" She watched Gordon hesitate for a moment before shaking his head uncertainly.

"No," he sighed. "Well, in a sense, _yes_, but not the one you're thinking of. I've...I've just met up with someone from my past and..." he paused again, picking his words as if each and every one were white-hot, "...it's rearranged me a little. I'll be fine. It's not something anyone else can help me sort out, really." Anne sipped carefully at her tea as she thought for a second.

"Just promise me one thing?" she asked, firmly.

"I'll try. What is it?"

"Promise me that this isn't going to land you in prison."

* * *

><p>Only after lunch did Gordon finally get the chance to head down to the technical department, taking the mask with him, wrapped in paper. He located Tricia in the darkroom, knocking gently on the door, although she eventually called out that she wasn't working on anything and that he could come right in.<p>

Gordon had been fond of Tricia from the moment they'd met. Though ten years his junior and fresh out of college, they'd clicked almost immediately, finding in the midst of a careless discussion that they shared an abiding interest in pre-Raphaelite art. Not that one would ever have suspected this of Tricia; her purple hair, her nose-ring, her Japanese tattoos all spoke of far less intellectual pursuits. However, it was she who'd introduced Gordon, fully and freely, to the concept of the dark horse.

Now he pulled the door behind him until it latched, and held a finger to his lips as he laid the mask on a side table and pulled back the paper. He saw Tricia's brows drop as she studied it intently.

"What on earth's this?"

"I wish I could tell you, my dear," Gordon sighed. "I do, but it's part of a plan I have, and I really don't want to jinx it by telling anyone just yet." Tricia turned her chin up to him for a second before returning her absorbed expression to the mask.

"Fair enough," she said, although not without a very faintly affronted sniff. "What d'you want me to do with it?"

"I need some polarised lenses fitted behind the eye sockets. It's made of steel; is that going to be a problem?"

"Good grief, no," Tricia said, finally tearing her gaze away from the mask with, it seemed to Gordon, some difficulty. "I've got everything I need. When do you want it done?" Only now did Gordon reach into his inside pocket and withdraw his wallet, then extracted two fifty-pound notes and folded them between his fingers.

"Right now would be ideal, I'd say," he chuckled. "Fifty for your trouble and fifty for keeping quiet about this, and I don't want to hear any argument, missy."

"I don't know what gave you the impression that I'd _argue_," Tricia smirked, taking the money with all due delicacy and grace, and shoving it into her back pocket, "I should have it done by the time you go home, although this has got to be the eighteenth strangest thing I've ever been asked to do."

"Only the eighteenth?" Gordon asked, curving one eyebrow.

"About that, yes," was the reply, as she picked up the mask and held it up to her face, regarding its contours. "Remember, I've had an adventurous life, sweetheart..."

* * *

><p>It was close to midnight by the time Gordon returned to the Walker Hotel. He'd had the mask laid on the passenger seat as he drove, wanting to keep it in view, but after just a few hundred yards' travel he'd approached the conclusion that this had not been such a good idea after all.<p>

The slight alteration that Tricia had wrought had had a far more devastating effect than he'd thought it would. With this turn and that, the lights he passed occasionally caught the lenses behind its eyes and gave them a subtle, suggestive, ophidian gleam that was hypnotic and distracting enough with nothing but empty space behind it. He could only wonder at what extra allure the mask would take on when it was reunited with its owner.

Well, Gordon realised, he was about to find out. He drew up in the alley by the north side entrance, fetched the mask from the seat and pressed the button on the entry phone. Long minutes passed, during which the wind rose to a distraught howl down the narrow alley and whipped an old newspaper past him and up into the air, spiralling frantically. Finally, there was a click as the summons was answered, softly and cautiously.

"…_Y__es?_"

"It's only me, V," he replied, hugging himself as some defence against the cruel wind. "I've brought the mask back."

There was a sharp buzz that indicated that the door had been unlocked and, pulling it open, Gordon stepped thankfully out of the tempestuous weather. V stood behind the door, head deeply bowed once more to conceal his damaged features although, in the shadows of this inner sanctum, it scarcely seemed necessary. Without a word, Gordon closed the door behind him and handed the mask over then, displaying as much tact and consideration as he'd ever been capable of, turned his back.

He heard several associated sounds from over his shoulder; there was a breathless exhalation of relief, then the smooth slither of steel on skin, and then a creak as V secured the straps of the mask. Gordon waited a few seconds more before he turned around, to be sure. When he did, he faltered and took a step backward in spite of all that he'd expected to see.

V's eyes glimmered like a feral cat's and, more than that, he oozed the same fully justified aura of self-satisfaction and assurance of total poise. The lenses, far from lending a hollow echo to the mask as if one might see nothing but their own soul reflected therein, instead afforded it the last piece of the puzzle and gave that sable gaze an approximation of living that was almost more animate than life itself.

Gordon remained transfixed as V crossed the room and flicked the lights on. The neon tubes stuttered momentarily before flashing into full brilliance but now, instead of his former reaction, V stood bathed in the relentless light with no evident sign of discomfort about his manner.

"Gordon," he said, turning his face up to the ceiling and basking all but lasciviously in the brightness, "this is a vast improvement. My thanks and regards must go to the artisan responsible for this."

"I'm glad I was of some help. Really," Gordon added, emphasising his words with meticulous care. "Have you been settling in here all right?"

"Wonderfully so, thank you," V said, his voice radiating genuine pleasure. "I took your advice and kept to the south-west side of the hotel but, really, what I've found there is more than adequate for my needs. This must once have been the finest establishment in the city."

"It was. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm afraid it's long past my bedtime," Gordon said, wearing his best attempt at a wry, world-weary smile despite the fact that he appeared to be held fast in the path of those soft, glowing eyes. It was only with a conscious act that he tore himself away and turned to leave.

Before he'd reached his car, however, V moved to the doorway and halted him with a word.

"Gordon?"

"Yes?"

"I assure you that you'll be repaid for your trouble on my behalf." Gordon ducked his head briefly, then pulled the door of the Jaguar open and laid his hand on the roof before responding.

"There's really no need for that," he said, placidly.

"The absence of requirement is requirement itself, Gordon. In any case, I have many future requests, and I fear that they may soon become onerous. This I cannot tolerate without offering some form of recompense."

"If it'll make you happy, then," Gordon supplied, climbing into the driver's seat with a grunt of effort. Over the course of the last forty-eight hours he'd begun to feel older and older. Not that his health had ever been at a splendid peak, especially not after the last few years of very sumptuous living, but he was, right now, aching from his hair downwards and wanted nothing so much as his bed.

Gordon found his mood at that point somewhat difficult to analyse, although he tried as best he could as he started the engine and eased the car carefully down the narrow alley. There was, he forced himself to admit, just the lightest veneer of anger at V coating the surface of it all.

Though intellectually he knew that V had not elected this state of affairs either and, in fact, had endured more in the last twelve months than any human body could be expected to tolerate, this current Gordon Deitrich, a tired and bewildered creature, was in no fit state to succumb to such a logical perspective. Besides, he felt that as irrational as it was, he wouldn't be himself if he didn't harbour some sense of entitlement to his bitterness about all of this.

The other portion of his turmoil was, depending on how he looked at it, either the strangest or the most natural aspect of all; he was fast becoming bewitched by V. Oh, it had almost nothing to do with his sexual preference, that much was apparent. Gordon had heard his own father describe the mesmeric qualities of this man and, as if that weren't enough, it could be divined from the encounter with Lucifer that V possessed an uncanny power of enchantment over both man and beast.

Perhaps these facets had more in common with each other than he'd first suspected. Gordon was sure that even though his desires - and the indulgence of them - had led him into trouble on more than one occasion in the past, he'd always liked to think that he was, ultimately, in charge of them and in charge of his own mind.

In the past few days, however, he'd had cause to believe that when V was around, this state of affairs was in some doubt...and because of this realisation, he was both perturbed and frightened in equal measure.

* * *

><p>V, meanwhile, had remained in the doorway until the purr of the Jaguar faded entirely. Though the streets were still lively with traffic even in the witching hour, here at the back of the hotel there was relative calm and little more than the soporific sigh of litter skating up and down the alley.<p>

The sound was soothing; the midnight city's answer to the crashing of the waves on an unnamed shore. V tilted his head back and allowed the cold wind to enter the narrow gap between the neck of his tunic and the edge of the mask for a moment.

He understood that as much as he'd made an acceptable trade, as much as he could live with the idea of spending the rest of his life on earth under a decorous and decorative disguise to keep the extent of his injuries from the eyes of others, it was the simple pleasures such as this cool contact that he would pine for from time to time.

V closed his eyes now, meditating, drawing the risk of this unknowing exposure against his thankfully shadowed position in the secluded alley. His mind flittered, butterfly-like, before taking wing and beginning to glide. It found its lift from those few precious moments, amongst the destruction of Larkhill Detention Centre, when he had been nothing more complex than a caged animal with the pure scent of freedom in its nostrils at last.

And it was in this tranquil state, and in the temporary fugue that it had induced, that he formed a truly delightful plan.


	6. Saturnalia

The train was four minutes late out of St. Pancras, for which Ken knew he would receive a reprimand.

It was always the way, he knew. In spite of the company's stated and re-stated commitment to customer care, in practise, the passenger trains were always running late these days and despite the volume of complaints they received, the directors weren't too bothered about that.

The overnight goods trains, however, were a different matter; their clients paid a substantial amount of money for an efficient service and, all extenuating circumstance aside, could be assured that any driver who was responsible for a delay – and it was always the driver who'd be held responsible, no matter what – would suffer for it.

Still, this was a matter for tomorrow, and _that_ lay at the end of a three-hour run up to Derby. In the meantime, all he had to concentrate on were the signals.

The Granary Street tunnel lay just ahead, and he eased back on the acceleration a little. Just here, he knew, the train emerged from the tunnel and almost straight out over the canal; it wasn't something you took lightly. The canal bridge itself was comparatively narrow and precipitous and would put the wind up anyone thinking to speed across it.

The train headed out across the canal at just less than ten miles per hour. Even so, it was an unnerving ride. The canal bridge, while structurally sound, was old, and the tracks hadn't really been constructed with the weight of modern engines in mind. In short, it rattled like a loosely-jointed skeleton as the engine and carriages pounded laboriously over it.

Ken ran his window down as the waters passed by far below, and flung his cigarette end out into the darkness. He was well aware that smoking in the cabin was practically a flogging offence but, then again, like most of the rules he had to adhere to, it had been put forward by those who didn't have to do the job he did and didn't understand the working conditions.

The engine was all but clear of the tunnel when Ken felt rather than heard a soft, muffled impact on the roof. Reflex had him let go of the switch, and the brakes cut in with a piercing squeal that set his teeth edge-on against one another. He put out a hand as he was urged forward by the jarring halt and then pushed himself back into his seat, catching his breath, trying to listen for any further sound from above.

There was none forthcoming, although after a second or two there was a thumping on the cabin door behind him, which resolved itself into an irritated voice.

"_What the bloody hell's going on?_" it asked.

"Sorry," Ken called back, twisting around over his shoulder. "Thought I heard something on the roof. Did you hear anything?"

"_No. Now get going, we're late already!_"

That seemed to be that. In truth, Ken had to admit that he'd probably imagined it. His nerves were still somewhat stretched; just two months ago he'd had a couple of idiots throw a paving stone off a bridge and into the path of his engine. Their aim had not been a match for their optimism, it appeared, as the stone had missed the train entirely and cracked neatly in two across the rails in front of it. Nevertheless, it could still have derailed the engine, and he'd reacted just in time.

He applied his hand to the switch again, and he heard the couplings groan gently as the engine shunted forward once more.

In the first carriage, the two guards shuffled themselves back into their seats and resumed their cribbage game. Their accommodation was luxurious enough; it was one of the old First Class carriages from the storage yard. They were no longer used for passenger transportation any more, the company having abandoned the idea of segregated rail travel and instead vowing to offer the same level of service to all its travellers. Admittedly, that level of service had turned out to be universally unreliable, but it was the thought that counted.

The oldest of the pair picked up his cards and dug an industrious, self-absorbed finger into his ear as he studied them. A five, two Kings, a seven, an eight and a two. He discarded the eight and the two and set his hand back down as he waited for his companion to make a decision. He knew it would take quite some time, judging from the constipated look on the kid's face. He sighed, dropped his chin into his palm and stared distantly out of the window as the city slid past them and the train finally picked up a decent turn of speed.

With his attention thus occupied, he heard a sharp gasp. He started, and for one fraction of a second looked up at the window before turning his head, briefly seeing the shadow looming over their table. When he swung around he felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder. This authoritarian grip tightened until a wicked lightning bolt of pain ran down his arm, and he was forced back down into his seat.

V sighed meaningfully, turning his attention to the younger man, who had now thrown himself to the far side of the table, his eyes glazed and panicky. V struck out with a practised fist, catching the lad just above the ear and sending him face-down across the table, spraying cards as he fell, his eyes rolling back into his head.

All of this had taken just two seconds; not nearly enough time for the older guard to marshal his vocal cords into anything more coherent than a strangled squawk. Now, as that cool, leather-gloved hand moved to the back of his neck and began to squeeze, he managed to grunt out a query.

"Who are you?"

"Please allow me to introduce myself," V said, voice lilting, betraying no hint of effort expended. "I'm a man of wealth...and taste."

These formalities done with, V's fingers found the nerves in the guard's neck and burrowed in. The man twitched like a trout on a hook before he joined his companion in the temporary liberation of unconsciousness. V kept a firm grip on the back of his neck as he sagged and, out of basic consideration, slid the cribbage board aside before allowing his boneless victim to slump over the table with a thin trickle of saliva running from his lower lip.

The train continued to click and rattle beneath V's feet as it passed into the city suburbs. He swung his head from side to side, scanning the carriage, but it seemed he'd dealt with the entirety of the meagre protection that this train had been afforded. He moved to the rear of the carriage and slid the door back, entering the first of the three freight wagons.

Unlike the adjoining carriage, this one was musty and unpalatable and, aside from the racks and lockers used to store the goods, was little but bare steel from floor to ceiling. It also tilted fitfully on the rails as the train rounded a gentle curve in the track, and V grasped a rail to steady himself. When the passage straightened out, he eased his grip and started to browse.

It was with some surprise that he noted the frailty of the lockers, most of which were opened by the simple expedient of punching the doors in near the bolt. The first yielded a consignment of fine porcelain dolls, and V paused to scan these white, wide-eyed faces with pertinent curiosity before moving on. The next contained watches, and the next, curiously enough, nothing more than several bundles of old photographs.

Stepping across the narrow aisle, V delivered a sharp blow to the next locker, which failed to respond immediately. He shook his hand to ease a sudden sting in his knuckles, and tried again. This time, the door buckled and swung back on its hinges.

V tilted his head with interest. _Ah_. He reached out and curled his fingers possessively around the contents of the locker, drawing them out and holding them in the dim wash of light from the single bulb in the wall.

* * *

><p>Ken swore quietly to himself as he heard the lock on the door click back. Those two jokers knew that they were supposed to stay in the carriage for the duration of the journey. As much as the company had been cutting some serious corners in the past few years and, truth be told, their customers would probably have a haemorrhage if they knew how lax the security on these trains really was, there was such a thing as doing a good job in a bad situation.<p>

He was just about to turn around to remonstrate when a freezing cold blade slid around his shoulder and fetched up against his throat, pressing almost lovingly against his cringing flesh. Ken jerked back reflexively but, at that point, a voice insinuated itself into his left ear.

"Good evening," it said, politely. "If you would, please go on with what you were doing. I would not like to think that we had failed to understand one another." The knife slid one half-inch to the side and now turned, bringing the blade into unadulterated contact with his skin.

Ken almost nodded at this juncture, but he had no sooner started to than he realised that this would result in his opening up his own artery. He simply swallowed heavily and gripped the switch and the accelerator all the more forcefully.

"I have a question," that silky voice continued, the knife caressing Ken's trembling throat all the while, "is this train scheduled to make any stops?"

"Only one," Ken quavered, swallowing again through a mouth as devoid of moisture as Death Valley. "But that's not until Corby."

"Excellent," the voice purred, its cadence soaked in genuine approval. "Unfortunately, this means that our brief association is at an end. My apologies," it added, softly, and then Ken received a ringing blow to the back of his neck, after which the world was switched off.

V slipped the knife back under his belt and grabbed the comatose driver by the back of his collar, hauling him ignominiously from the seat and allowing him to slide to the floor of the cabin. He then took up station at the controls, fixing his hands over the levers and keeping the train gliding through the night, watching the rails unfold in front of the rattling engine for half a minute, urging the thundering monster to greater and greater speeds.

* * *

><p>It was close to midnight, and Gordon was reading in bed. It wasn't something he'd normally have been doing, but he'd decided to catch up on some classic literature and, to this end, was buried in the pages of <em>Don Quixote<em>.

_"The mischief," said Don Quixote, "lay in my going away; for I should not have gone until I had seen thee paid; because I ought to have known well by long experience that there is no clown who will keep his word if he finds it will not suit him to keep it; but thou rememberest, Andres, that I swore if he did not pay thee I would go and seek him, and find him though he were to hide himself in the whale's belly_."

He wasn't sleepy. This in itself was unusual, and so he'd been reading for the better part of an hour now for two reasons. Firstly to pass the time without actually declaring surrender and getting out of bed and, secondly, to prevent himself acknowledging the little mouse of worry that was now gnawing at his nerves.

It had now been three days since he'd seen or heard a word from V and, though he knew he was probably being slightly unfair, Gordon couldn't help but wonder whether this radio silence meant that the man was up to something...dramatic.

Gordon set the book aside, marking his place and sliding it under his pillow. He was too itchy to read any further and, besides, that last paragraph had struck a little too close to home, talking about payment. V's parting words to him had made mention of some kind of 'recompense', and he'd still not managed to wrap adequate meaning around them.

He shivered; the bedroom seemed to have grown colder in the space of the last few minutes. Shifting his legs out of bed, he heaved himself up and reached for his robe. There seemed to be no further use in this struggle against insomnia, and he had a handful of diazepam set aside for emergencies. To be honest, he confessed in the privacy of his head, he hadn't had to use them in over a year, alcohol being the acceptable sedative that it was.

The light in the bathroom was vicious and unremitting compared to the lamplit corridor, and Gordon blinked several times to clear his vision before he opened the medicine cabinet. He had to pick up several bottles before he found the one he was seeking – again, not a very good indicator – and was just about to unscrew the cap when he heard the distant sound of the letterbox snapping back.

Reflex sent a sharp twist through his stomach, although reflex was by now some way behind current events. Gordon had a fair idea who might have stopped by at this time of the night. Exercising a modicum of self-control, he finished his mission first, twisting the cap from the bottle and shaking one pill out. Just one. He dry-swallowed this, then flipped the light off and made his way downstairs to the hall in the darkness.

The hall always seemed larger in low light, and this was no exception. Still, there was enough of a wash through the fanlight to make out an envelope lying on the rug. For reasons he couldn't identify, Gordon glanced back up the stairs before he crossed the hall, the gesture reeking of nervousness and...guilt? Then he took three sudden strides and bent to pick up that smooth, white, and oddly threatening item.

It was bulky, his first impression supplied as his fingers explored the heavy paper. There was no writing on it, but there was a sketch of sorts, scrawled out in soft pencil. A capital 'V', set within a rough circle, as if further evidence were needed as to the identity of this midnight messenger.

Pulling back the flap – the envelope was of such quality that it wouldn't slit easily – Gordon slipped his fingers inside, touching fine velvet. Some sort of pouch, caught with a length of ribbon. He reached out absent-mindedly now to turn the light on, and extracted the velvet bag from the envelope. His movements were languid, almost dreamlike as he pulled at the drawstring, and he paused only momentarily for breath before tipping the contents into his hand.

Gordon's eyes widened. He lost all sense and semblance of reality at this point, and simply stared and stared at his own clammy palm and what lay quite innocently nestled in it.

* * *

><p>As a matter of necessity, the track had been closed in both directions. If Chief Inspector McLennan felt that he had anything at all to be grateful for in the midst of this bizarre debacle, he decided that he was grateful that this little incident had not taken place during morning or evening rush hour, neither of which would have boded well for him. As it stood, if he could get everything wrapped up before dawn, he just might not find himself stuck with the explanations.<p>

He turned, studying the abandoned carriages, immensely distracted, until a hoarse cough from behind his shoulder brought him back to his senses.

"Inspector?" said a gruff voice, its tone ever so faintly apologetic for intruding upon his thoughts. McLennan swung around and beheld his newest acquisition, that new Detective Sergeant...what was his name? Transferred less than a month ago from some godforsaken Northern backwater; that was all he could recall at present. This was the first time they'd been paired up. McLennan's mind was far too mired in this current event to be bothered with petty detail, anyway.

"What have we got?" he barked, and then forcibly reeled himself back in.

"Not much, sir, I'll be honest," the DS replied, tugging his earlobe as he spoke. "I've had a word with the guards, but they're both still a bit wonky, and it doesn't look as if they got a good look at the bloke in any case."

"What about the driver?"

"He's a lot better. Unfortunately," said the DS, finally letting go of his ear, "he was taken by surprise. Got a knife held to his neck from behind and didn't see anything before he got a wallop."

"Well, isn't this nice," McLennan said, as sourly as he could. "Their insurance company's going to have a field day with this, and that's _before_ they find out how bad the security was to begin with."

He watched the DS drop a 'not our problem' shrug, and was struck by the general hangdog air of the man. Everything about him seemed to sag, engendering a tangible air of generalised hopelessness about his head. Maybe that was how they bred their coppers in Lancashire – who knew? It was as good a theory as any.

"You reckon it might be an inside job, then, sir?" the DS was saying, very softly. McLennan, distracted again, caught only the gist of this question.

"It's not my job to reckon anything," he responded, firmly. "Or yours. Have SOCO finished in there?"

"Almost, but if you want my opinion, this guy's crafty. We already know he was wearing gloves, and as for jumping on the roof of a moving train in the first place..." The DS let the rest of that sentence slide quietly into oblivion.

"Yes, yes," McLennan said, now rattled beyond the bounds of his patience. "Let's start speculating when we've got something concrete to speculate on, shall we? Anyway, have we got the engine back yet?" He watched the DS start pulling his ear again and, deciding that this was obviously a nervous tic, concluded that the news wasn't going to be what he wanted to hear.

"That's going to have to wait until they've got it back on the tracks, sir," the DS volunteered. "It derailed on a curve up in Highgate and ended up nose down in a ditch. The perpetrator dragged the driver into the carriage, then rigged the accelerator and the switch and uncoupled the lot."

McLennan turned away, turned back, stared at the sky and then eventually said: "Why?" although all that this gained him was another purely vertical shrug from the DS.

"Couldn't say, sir," he added, to amend the shrug somewhat. "So far it doesn't seem as if it was central or even necessary to the plan when it'd have been simpler just to stop the whole lot and stroll off. Maybe he just wanted to make a mess? Some do."

McLennan jammed his hands into his coat pockets so hard that he was sure he felt the lining give out somewhere along a seam. It was past two in the morning now, and a fine, prickling drizzle was meandering out of the sky, taking its time, well aware that it had all night to soak things through.

"All right," he said, through painfully clenched jaw muscles, "let's wrap up here for now, not a lot we can do until we get some evidence in our pocket. Hopefully we'll have more luck with the engine." Here he halted, while a dreadful thought occurred to him. "It _is_ in one piece, isn't it?"

"So I'm told, sir, but as I say it'll be a while yet before they can winch it back onto the rails and drag it down here. I'll wait for it, sir, if it's all the same to you. One of us'd better keep an eye on things."

McLennan coloured himself surprised at this turn of events, although he covered it well. Maybe the fellow could prove useful after all, for a Northerner.

"If you want," he said, awash with relief that he hadn't had to bother with delegation, which was something he'd never quite mastered to full effect. "Thank you, Sergeant...er..." he went on, suspending the unspoken query between them in a rose-coloured haze of embarrassment.

"Finch, sir," the DS said, with not a smidgeon of awkwardness.

* * *

><p>Meanwhile, some way across the sullen city, Gordon drew his car carefully up into the alley alongside the Walker Hotel. He yanked the handbrake up and then simply sat, glued to the seat by indecision, drumming and flicking his fingers on the steering wheel almost as if he hoped he could beat some sense out of it.<p>

He was not entirely in touch with events by this point, he was aware, and he'd taken a measurable risk by driving after having taken a potent sedative. That said, however, he also had an inkling that if he didn't get this sorted out now, by the time dawn cracked across the land he would have either lost his nerve altogether, or put the whole thing down to a badly-digested dream.

This conclusion reached, he clambered out of the car and into a fine spattering of rain. Reaching the doorway, he huddled into it as best he could, then pressed the buzzer with a finger that was already tending to numbness. The call was answered with commendable haste – didn't the man ever sleep? – and then Gordon mumbled a greeting into the intercom.

V bowed his guest into the wine cellar with all the hallmarks of proprietorship and, even in the midst of his soup of bewilderment, tiredness and upset, Gordon found time and space to be stunned at the changes V had wrought in the space of just a few days. He'd shifted several magnificent pieces of furniture down from the floors above, and it had to be admitted that if anything, they looked more at home down here than they ever had in the baroque splendour of the staterooms they'd come from.

Several paintings had also been hung on the walls, seemingly without regard to arrangement but with an obvious joy in their displaying. Some of them looked familiar, though most didn't register with Gordon's memory banks.

Looking around, he spotted the piano that had once held pride of place in the hotel's restaurant, and a small forest of gorgeous Tiffany lamps, all stored against one wall for future distribution about the cellar. There was also a suit of armour propped, blind and loose-jointed, in one corner, although Gordon couldn't for the life of him recall seeing it about the hotel itself.

To complete the picture, the central gallery and surrounding alcoves had been laid with rich, red Oriental rugs, while complementary curtains in that same shade of brooding scarlet swathed off parts of the cellar.

V stood back, not speaking, his hands clasped modestly before him, allowing his visitor to study the details of the scenery he was surrounded by. He waited courteously until Gordon had finally closed his gaping mouth, and then nodded politely.

"I have, as you can see, been fully occupied in setting up home," V said. "I must say that whoever furnished this hotel was possessed of some fine and cultured tastes."

"Er, V?" Gordon began, less than hopefully, and had to restrain himself from backing down as that ghostly face swung in his direction, its attention fixing him with an all-too penetrating lock. "Did you...I wondered if it was you who gave me these?" Gordon made the point by pulling the black velvet bag from his pocket and upending it over his cupped hand. A miniature waterfall of brilliant cut diamonds poured out, catching every beam of the subdued light in the cellar and flicking them back out in a chaos of tiny rainbows.

It was absurd, and that much must have been obvious, but Gordon waited as V directed a careful, calm and pointed stare at the heap of gems before replying.

"It was," V replied, his voice betraying no emotion stronger than, perhaps, a _soupçon_ of wry humour. "You'll recall that I promised you recompense? I trust that this will suffice."

"Suffice?" Gordon echoed, his voice hollow and his eyes now feeling like two holes bored in solid granite. "V, these are _stolen_, aren't they?"

"Of course they are," V said at once, his tone now undeniably amused and, Gordon thought, ever so slightly patronising. However, once again he was subjected to that eerie sensation of a shift in the mask's expression, and this time a smoke-curl of sorrow tainted the air between the two.

"I feel I am in a debt of apology, Gordon," V continued, taking a step forward across the rug. "Of the two of us, I am the one with very little to lose, and I regret that I have involved you in these affairs. However..." here he hesitated, seemingly to marshal his flowing thoughts, and glanced at the far wall, "...I may not have been entirely clear about what lay before us and I had, perhaps, been remiss in leaving that explanation to your father when that duty properly belonged to me."

Gordon was now helplessly lost in all of this. He closed his fist around the diamonds until they ached against his skin, and elected not to say anything until he had a halfway coherent idea of what he _could_ possibly say. He was content just to listen as V continued.

"I am already a hunted fugitive," he said, his tone now as soothing as a physician's. "I had hoped that this was the one apparent fact in what must seem, to you, to be a tremendous mess of loose ends and shadows. If it was _not_ apparent, that fault is mine, and not yours.

"However belatedly that understanding has arisen, though, I hope that you now understand why the very least that I am forced to undertake in order to make my way in the world is banditry?"

"I..." Gordon said, and then visibly sagged. V moved away, returning moments later with a mysteriously chilly glass of white wine. Placing a solicitous hand on Gordon's shoulder, he led him to a nearby chair and urged him down onto it, placing the glass in his hand as he did so. Gordon gulped gratefully at this cold lifeline and waited until he trusted his voice again.

"I do understand," he said, his throat both chilled and lubricated now, and consequently feeling quite some way better. "And I suppose you're right. Things aren't going to improve from this point on, are they?"

"No," was the bare reply, from above his head.

"I believe I can live with a little brigandage, when it's put into perspective," Gordon went on, as if V hadn't spoken. "And," he laughed with only the merest edge of hysteria, "I wasn't saying I wanted to give the diamonds back, if that's what you thought."

"Why, then the world's mine oyster, which I with sword will open," said that sonorous voice, and when Gordon raised his head it was to see a bright and elfin spark cross those deep, dark eyes as V tossed his head back in genuine mirth.


	7. Analysis

McLennan was reading copies of the statements they'd taken from the driver and the guards although, to anyone watching, the expression on his face as he did so would have looked like the very highest representation of bitter confusion.

The stories tallied perfectly; that wasn't the problem. The problem was that there was very little to any of them. Despite making a full recovery from a moderate concussion, the younger guard had seemed distracted when dictating his statement and, in spite of continual reassurances from McLennan and Finch that he was in safe hands, had persisted in his assertion that he'd caught no more than a vague impression of the suspect beyond the all-encompassing black garb and the mask. Some kind of Halloween mask, he'd said, and that was the best description he'd been able to muster.

His companion had had even less to say for himself, having seen little more than a reflection in the window. However, he did recall that the perpetrator had spoken, and proceeded to repeat the phrase as best he could. McLennan had merely frowned at this; although Finch had obviously recognised the words and had scribbled _R. Stones – Sympathy f/t Devil?_ on his notepad, almost without conscious involvement in this act, before pushing the pad across the desk for his superior's attention.

This supremely cryptic quotation had since been added to the whiteboard in the incident room, where it hung above McLennan's head like a particularly troublesome Zen mantra. The problem with clues like this, he was well aware, was that if you spent your time chasing them for meaning when it turned out that your suspect was nuttier than a Snickers bar, you'd end up with nothing more than an awful lot of wasted time on your hands, and in professional terms, that was always very embarrassing.

The door clicked open, and McLennan jerked out of this morose reverie to see Finch slope into the room, a file tucked under his arm. The weather had obviously improved in the past hour; Finch carried his dingy grey overcoat over his shoulder. He hung this up with exaggerated care before passing the file across the desk.

"Sorry, sir," he said. "No prints on the carriages _or_ the engine that can't be accounted for. No hair or fibres either." He pulled out a chair and slumped into it, exhaling raggedly as he did so. "This is fast turning into a weird one, all right."

"Turning into?" McLennan repeated ironically, flipping through the forensic report as if he required at least this much confirmation of Finch's statements. Unfortunately, it was all perfectly true. Their suspect may as well have been a poltergeist for all the mess he'd made, yet without leaving a single trace of his identity behind.

"I've got good news and bad news, sir," Finch continued, apprehensively. McLennan glanced up from the report, and then folded it closed on his lap and leaned back.

"Not," he said, very wearily, "that I believe for one second that there's any good news about _any_ of this but, assuming for the moment that there just might possibly be, I'd like that first, please."

"I've managed to get copies of the shipping notes from Northwest, although they gave me a bloody hard time about it. Customer confidentiality my arse," Finch spat, "they're up to something. Anyway, I only had to use the word 'warrant' twice before they gave up."

McLennan wriggled uneasily in his chair, dropped the file onto a side table, laced his fingers and said: "Well?"

"Only one shipment was missing," said Finch, carefully, studying the papers he'd produced. "A large consignment of South African cut diamonds with..." he paused ever so slightly here, like a dog anticipating a kick, "...an estimated market value of just over four hundred and thirty thousand pounds."

Finch watched dully as the colour poured out of the Chief Inspector's face like wine from a carafe, and decided to soldier on with the rest of the bad news.

"Apparently, the buyer was supposed to collect the diamonds from the train at Derby via a private security firm. He's the Viscount Scarsdale. Maybe you need a coffee, sir?" Finch added, aware that he was now the sole standard-bearer of this conversation. McLennan was deathly quiet, and never had a phrase been more appropriately employed.

After they'd fetched some coffee, and McLennan had regained a percentage of his composure, he made further inquiries.

"Has his Lordship been told about all this yet?" he asked tentatively, hoping against all hope for a negative response. Finch, however, nodded mournfully.

"I'll say. He's having an eppy, by all accounts."

"Bugger," said McLennan, his voice suddenly somewhat distant. "That means we're going to have to call a press conference before those swine get hold of this anyway. They'll have heard about the derailment and, thick though they may be, they'll put two and two together.

"Oh, I'll also need to have a word with the Viscount, though Christ knows what I'm going to be able to tell him that isn't going to make matters ten times worse. Can you sort all that out, Finch?"

"Right away, sir," Finch replied, hauling himself out of his chair and slipping out of the room. Only when the door had closed behind him did McLennan let out a long, luxuriant sigh and rub his forehead distractedly. This was rapidly turning into his worst nightmare, and he had an inkling that it was going to get darker still from this point on.

He leaned back in his chair, basked in the weak, watery sunlight that slipped in through the slatted blinds, and tried his hardest to compose the beginnings of a press statement that wouldn't make it sound as if he were coming unglued.

* * *

><p>Gordon awoke to the muted, lovely strains of Puccini's <em>Madama<em> _Butterfly_ from a distance, which went at least part of the way towards soothing the blunt-edged ache behind his forehead. He rolled over, heavily, and felt cool satin beneath his cheek, and it was only at this point that his eyes flicked open in an overload of confusion and he absorbed his surroundings.

He looked down at himself, noting that he was still fully dressed aside from his jacket and shoes, although a fine, soft woollen blanket had been laid over him. He was in fact arriving at a recall of the previous night even as he sat up, although it took the memories some time to click back into place and, in the meantime, he studied the room with piquant curiosity.

It must at one point have been one of the cellar's side rooms. Although Gordon had a vague recollection that the doors had been removed and stacked at the far end of the cellar, either he was mistaken or V had rehung them at some point, for there was indeed a door to this room and it was pulled all but closed.

Aside from the bed, the rest of the furniture consisted of...books. Nothing but books, in random, haphazard and occasionally precarious piles. They had, he assumed, been gathered with painstaking care from the shelves of the rooms and suites far above this lair and, though they'd been given no such home or any particular grace of arrangement about the room, had nevertheless been taken in with love and devotion, even if there was something of the packrat about it all.

He shifted his legs off the bed and stood up, a little uneasily, the sudden change in elevation intensifying the thud of the headache once more. He waited until the room had stopped pulsating in time with the pain, and then pushed the door open.

The music swelled in volume as he wandered out into the cellar. Out here, it echoed, and seemed scratchy and slightly rough, as if it were being played on an old gramophone. Only now did he notice that someone somewhere was singing along with the aria, taking Pinkerton's part in the duet. Gordon hesitated behind a pillar, feeling somewhat prurient for listening in on this but, at one and the same time, loath to interrupt the sweetest, most spine-tingling tenor he'd ever heard.

"_Stolta_ _paura, l'amor non uccide...ma dà vita e sorride per gioie celestiali..._"

The music was a mere underscore to this plangent siren song, at least as far as Gordon's ears were concerned. _Butterfly_ had always been one of his favourite operas, and he'd heard many differing performances both recorded and live, but to the best of his memory he'd never been serenaded by a voice of such purity.

Gordon didn't realise he'd been holding his breath until he was forced to let it out again in one all-encompassing gasp, and it was at this point that the singing stopped, abruptly, and was replaced by swift, light footsteps.

V presented himself, stepping around the pillar and bowing his head in greeting. Gordon was prepared to swear that he could all but _hear_ the soft blush rising behind the mask, so strong was the aura of discomfiture emanating from the man. He then felt that small, fragile soap-bubble of embarrassment burst, and V's shoulders settled minutely.

"Good afternoon, Gordon," V said, his manner as impeccable as it had ever been. "I trust you slept well? I thought I should leave you to wake in your own time."

"Um. Tolerably," Gordon admitted, "but I'm beginning to wonder if it's just coincidence that I always seem to have a headache when I'm around you..."

V laughed companionably at the implication. "I'm afraid that I can't accept responsibility for this one, at least," he said. "You took the best part of a bottle of wine on top of a tranquilliser and thus were in no condition to drive home, which is why I had to insist upon your staying here."

"Thank you," Gordon replied, then, after a pause, considered a technical point. "Where did you sleep?"

Later, Gordon would undergo several mental replays of the way V's head had cocked to the side at that question, time enough to reach a conclusion as to the shade of inference behind the gesture. He eventually decided that it was an expression of supreme puzzlement; almost as if the query were quite without meaning.

This may or may not have been the correct interpretation but, either way, V apparently declined to answer. Instead, he extended a courtly hand in the direction of the kitchen.

"Would you like something to eat?"

"Thank you, yes." Something occurred to Gordon, belatedly, and he added, "as long as it's something simple. I'm not sure I can face grease just at the moment."

"Understandably so," V purred.

After a strengthening plate of lightly buttered toast, Gordon managed to fight off the foggy remnants of his hangover. At one point he'd found himself about to ask whether V would be joining him, before tact dug its spurs into his brain, caught up with his mouth, and reminded him that this would necessarily involve removing the mask. Instead, he simply settled down, cupped his chin in his palm and sipped his tea carefully.

"V?" he said, idly. "There's something I've been wondering."

"Yes?"

"What was it like? The robbery, I mean." Gordon, sensing the beginnings of a frown from the far side of the table, ploughed on. "I'm just curious as to how it felt. I was a bit of a tearaway when I was younger, but I never went so far as to make off with a sack of diamonds."

V seemed to give this question all of its due weight in consideration. He leaned back against the kitchen worktop, folding his hands in front of him and cogitating for long moments.

"I confess," he said, eventually, "that I'm not at all sure what it is you wish to know. Don't blame yourself for any confusion; your curiosity is perfectly human. I, however, take a different approach to things than most.

"What can I say?" V went on. "I lacked the customary motivations for theft or, at least, I had a motivation that is scarcely commonplace, especially in these times. I did not steal from the demands of avarice or for the thrill of the pursuit. I did it to restore the balance between us. I did it because it needed to be done and because it was all I _could_ do to achieve my aim. That is, I'm afraid, the best explanation I can offer you."

Gordon set his cup down, and was about to say something more when a rat darted across the flagstones and over his foot. He yelped aloud, and made a spirited attempt to climb onto the table, shaking with fright and nausea. The animal veered in its course, tail whipping violently, and scuttled beneath the oven, where Gordon could hear it shuffling about.

"V, there's a..." he gasped for air, and tried again, "...there's a rat in here!"

"I know," said V, lightly, and this simple admission sliced through Gordon's reflexive disgust, replacing most of it with incredulity. He clambered back down off his chair, although he kept a close eye on the oven, watching for the re-emergence of the rodent.

"You mean you..."

"Yes," V responded, and now he crouched down by the wall, putting a hand out, waiting patiently. Gordon shied back as the rat trundled out from the shadows, sniffed at V's glove for a moment and then hopped quite nonchalantly onto his wrist. He stood, raising his hand, the rat balancing carefully in his palm all the while, and then lifted the creature quite smoothly up to eye level.

"I think I could turn and live with animals," V murmured, studying the quivering animal with overwhelming equanimity. "They are so placid and self-contain'd..."

After a few seconds, which passed in absolute silence, Gordon cleared his throat meaningfully. When this failed to have any effect, he spoke up.

"V?" Still no reaction. He tried again. "V...are you all right?"

The mask swung around with such suddenness that soft black strands of hair flipped across it for a second. That gesture, that turn, was, somehow, momentarily threatening. Then the rat scampered up V's arm and nestled into his shoulder, and the passing flash of tension vanished into the ether.

"I'm fine," said V, smoothly. "I'm sorry, Gordon. Are you afraid of rats?" Gordon swallowed, unsure of whether he ought to concede this matter, but got the distinct impression that he was being scanned and read like an open book. He settled for nodding slowly.

"Then I shall ensure that you see no more of them," V continued, and reached up to remove the animal from his shoulder. Placing it gently on the floor, he watched as it scuttled away into the shadows surrounding the door to the upper cellars, its tiny feet pattering on the stones. Gordon finally exhaled.

"You let rats in here?" he asked.

"I do not go to great lengths to keep them out, certainly." V replied, finally turning his even gaze away from the doorway and returning it to Gordon, who flinched minutely. "It is warm here, and preferable to the Underground tunnels. We don't trouble one another. Besides, they are...uncomplicated company."

"But you can persuade them to keep away?" said Gordon, determined to explore every tiny aspect of this unsettling revelation.

"Oh, yes."

"How?"

"I cannot say, because I do not know," V admitted. "I can no more answer that than I can tell you how my heart beats. It is a facility that, for reasons unknown, I appear to possess...and that is all I can tell you."

Gordon hesitated, aware that a vivid pink flush was rising on his face from the sudden, furious embarrassment at his own internal monologue. Recent events in his life that had started out eccentric were now entering the suburbs of insanity, and the only reason that he wasn't drawing parallels between all of this and a story from the Brothers Grimm was that even on mescaline, Jacob and Wilhelm would never have created anything quite like this. Still, Gordon valiantly recovered some lost ground.

"Well," he volunteered, managing a weak smile as he did so, "if this jewel thief angle doesn't work out, you'll always have a future in pest control."

There was a soft and sibilant laugh from behind the mask, and a short, sharp reflection in its eyes that, once more, almost created the impression of living tissue.

* * *

><p>Gordon left the hotel a little while later and – though some tiny part of him thought better of this – elected to go straight to the studios. There was nothing at home that he couldn't duplicate there; there would be strong tea and a shower, a comfortable backstage room to relax in and a change of clothes. Makeup would be able to take care of any lingering shadows beneath his eyes. He didn't doubt that they'd be there, after his last night's exploits.<p>

If nothing else, the studios had one advantage that his home lacked: the presence of other people. Normal, everyday people who don't hide behind disturbing masks or consort with rats, he added, although he was very shortly appalled at his own vitriol which, even taking into account the fact that he _still_ felt as if he'd been press-ganged, was uncalled-for.

As he drove, Gordon made a concerted effort to recall the guest list for that evening's show, which he'd gone over with Anne just the previous afternoon. Unfortunately, it appeared to have dissolved in that rich cocktail of white wine, little white pills and undue emotional strain. All he could currently recall was that it followed the standard chat show formula quite faithfully, and comprised one A-list celebrity and two hopefuls, the latter probably soap stars or stand-up comedians.

_Never mind_, he comforted himself. _Anne will be there by now_. She'd developed this precise routine through the last several years of knowing that Gordon might at any point in the week show up at least as hung over as this, and probably more so, and she would consequently be ready and able to shepherd him through his final preparations with a minimum of fuss.

Anne was, indeed, waiting in Gordon's dressing room with a cup of tea and a list of the questions that they'd agreed upon with the stars' agents earlier in the week, although Gordon took one look at the carefully neutral expression on her face and quickly concluded that there was some bad news of indeterminate severity lurking just beyond the horizon.

"Afternoon, sweetheart," she gave him, and then patted the chair beside her. "Once again, you trail in here looking like an extra from a Hammer horror film. Still don't want to discuss it?" Gordon eyeballed Anne for a second, and then flopped down onto the chair.

"It's not a case of not wanting to discuss it," he said, sighing theatrically as he did so. "It's just that you're better off not knowing."

"Isn't that my decision?" she asked, putting her head to one side.

"Nope. Sorry." Gordon countered, although he was smiling as he did so and, though she clicked her tongue in annoyance, Anne dropped the subject straight away.

"We've had a minor technical hitch," she said ruefully, handing over the papers. "George Clooney's not going to be able to make it."

Though he would have liked to express dismay at this news, Gordon felt that this would be a staggering example of intellectual dishonesty. He had long harboured a deep crush on George Clooney, and the thought of having to sit less than six feet away from him caused a stomach-burning stress reaction.

"Who have we got instead?" he inquired, though without much hope in his voice. Who would they have dredged up at half a day's notice?

"Johnny Depp, apparently. He's in London for a premiere and he didn't mind doing it on the fly." Anne paused, seemed to switch direction, and asked, "He's not your type, is he?"

"Good grief," said Gordon, the words soaked in an incredulous laugh, "am I _that_ transparent?"

"I'm afraid so," Anne shot back, grinning just as broadly herself.

"Well, we can both relax, then. No, he isn't my type. I'll be fine." Gordon stretched now, feeling every single little creak and click in his back and shoulders as he did so. When he opened his eyes again it was to see Anne's face mirroring his own discomfort. She sighed delicately, and laid her clipboard aside.

"Gordon," she said, with exquisite affection, "you look like lightly-warmed shit. Go and have a shower, I made sure the bathroom was clean and there're fresh towels in there. And mouthwash," she added pointedly, not quite as an afterthought, and only then did it occur to Gordon just how bad his breath must be. He wrinkled his nose in silent apology, but Anne wasn't quite finished.

"When that's done," she continued, "I suggest you have a lie down for a bit. You won't be needed for another few hours yet, and I'll make sure you're not disturbed. Just don't you dare take any pills and don't you even think about drinking anything else. Got that?"

It was undiluted impulse, he knew, but he couldn't think what else to do, so Gordon reached out and grasped Anne's hand. She reacted with vague surprise, but didn't pull away, and returned his squeeze with her own.

"Tough love. I know, Anne, and I'd be a little lost without you. Thank you," he said, gently. She nodded in acknowledgement and then stood up, brushing the creases from her skirt as she did so.

"I'll come and get you at five o'clock," she said, "now get cleaned up and get napping, all right?"

When Anne had pulled the door closed behind her, Gordon sat back in his chair and stared into the mirror for quite some time, almost as if trying to recognise the face he saw in it. The lights around the frame were piercing, and unnecessarily cruel in the level of detail that they illuminated; it was not a very pretty sight that met his gaze, he conceded, and reached out to switch them off, plunging the room into relative darkness.

That done, he reached into his pocket, withdrew his mobile phone and flipped it open.

* * *

><p>It was long past midnight. A scrawny suburban fox was prowling through the debris beneath a privet hedge, pushing its soft nose into the litter, trying to root out the faint scent of food that had drawn it here from across the street. It paused for a second, head flicking up from its endeavours, and its coppery eyes darted about it for a second as its hind legs bent in a reflexive action and prepared itself for flight.<p>

The fox remained quite still, head aloft, tail tucked beneath its body, as a velvet figure drifted past it, only vaguely outlined against the dull glow from the streetlights. The animal crouched lower under the hedge, but made no move to escape, even as it heard a tiny sigh, scarcely more than an exhalation in itself, issue from the shadows beneath the wide hat-brim. This shade then passed by without incident, and the fox returned to its explorations.

V stopped outside the house he sought and raised his chin, studying the building intimately and with profound care. Every light in the house was off and, aside from the soft breath of the fox he had passed and the distant traffic on the high street, he heard nothing. Even the biting autumn wind had settled. The street might as well have been dead.

Opening the gate, he paced quietly up the front path and slipped into the gloom of the porch. Withdrawing a long sliver of steel from his sleeve, he slid this into the lock and twisted it fractionally. This produced no response, so he adjusted the set of the pick and tried again. The lock finally submitted, and he pushed the door inward, edging through the gap and closing it again with one hand on the latch to keep the noise to a minimum.

The hallway was in near-absolute blackness, but V's eyes adjusted with useful speed, and he paused here to attune his hearing to the background noises of the house. The central heating ticked to itself, obviously only recently switched off. The clocks in the kitchen and the living room added their arpeggios, as did the refrigerator. The general effect of this symphony was soporific.

Discerning no human movement, he turned and started up the stairs, keeping to the sides of the treads to reduce any chance of their creaking. The hall bore some weak light from an open door at the near end, but was otherwise in shadow. As he passed this door, however, V pulled himself up in his tracks and crept a little closer, head cocked, suffused with rapt attention.

A woman lay sleeping in a double bed, although she was alone. Somewhere in her early forties, with her strawberry blonde hair ruffled and tangled and spread out over the pillow; it was evident from this, from her puffed eyelids, and – V took one pace forward, sighing sadly – from the half-empty bottle of Valium on her bedside table that this sleep was neither easy nor easily won.

He watched her breathing, he watched her eyelids flicker, as the seconds clicked past on the alarm clock, and then moved on, head bowed and fists clenched so tightly that his gloves squeaked. He knew that what he sought was not in this room and, though it troubled him to turn away at all let alone so soon, time was not his ally in this event. He straightened his shoulders and moved toward the other bedroom.

When he returned, stowing a small black leather case inside his cloak, he hesitated once more and, this time, drifted through the bedroom door to study the woman at closer quarters. Her face maddened him with the effort of recollection, but found that it was like trying to piece together shattered crystal. He'd known where he had to come. He'd known what he had to retrieve. But this woman...all that he knew was that the sight of her stirred something that clawed at his gut and, as much as he wanted to linger, in some other way that prospect was a painful one.

Even so...

Without making a decision of any kind, V reached down and brushed a damp strand of hair from her forehead. She twisted slightly, and muttered something in a voice so soft and subtle that even he could not catch it.

"Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee," he whispered, as gently as a butterfly, "that thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down, and steep my senses in forgetfulness?"

The woman's turmoil seemed to ease, almost as if she had heard this, and her faint struggle against her dreaming state ceased. V nodded just once, in understanding, then turned on his heel and left the room_**.**_


	8. Repercussion

The lamplight glinted through the glass of malt whisky as Tricia held it up, saluting Gordon across the coffee table. She eyed him carefully, then withdrew the glass and took a small sip, wincing ever so slightly as she did so.

"So," she said, grinning hugely. "Here's to the new star of primetime. How did it go last night?" Gordon lifted his own glass, which contained nothing more seditious than sparkling mineral water, and reflected for a moment upon the amount of inner strength that it had taken him to refrain from indulging in alcohol. This then passed, and he smiled.

"A lot better than I thought it would," he told her, "especially considering we had to improvise things with Johnny. He seemed all right with it, though. Not a bad chap, if you ask me." Tricia just about choked on her drink at this point.

"Not bad?" she echoed, incredulous. "You lucky sod. What wouldn't I have given to talk to Johnny Depp? He's delicious."

Tricia clasped her drink in front of her, wrapping long fingers around the glass; Gordon idly noted that every single one of her nails was painted in a different colour of the rainbow. She seemed to be on the point of changing tack, and was gazing vaguely into the whisky while she composed her thoughts. At length, she raised her head and fixed Gordon with a beady eye.

"On a not very related note," she said, slowly, "you did mention that there was something you wanted to ask me. Not that I'm averse to your company," she added, lifting one corner of her mouth in a gentle smirk, "but I've had a rough day, and right now I'd like nothing better than to see the soft side of my pillow. So...why am I here?"

Gordon had been devoting considerable thought as to how to broach this subject, and had still not reached a comfortable conclusion. However, deciding that there were far worse character traits than blunt honesty, he reached into his pocket and withdrew the velvet sack. Pulling at the bow, he opened the bag and tipped the diamonds out onto the glass-topped table, where they shimmered and coruscated in the soft light. Tricia's jaw fell; though he'd heard the cliché, Gordon never thought he'd see it in action.

"Fuck me," she whispered, her eyes fixed to the gems as if they were on strings. "What the hell are you doing with _that_ lot?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you," said Gordon, after a short pause for consideration. At this, Tricia finally ripped her gaze up and aimed it in his direction. Her eyes narrowed considerably.

"I think you just did, matey," she said, and then looked back down again, her expression glowing with equal amounts of avarice and incredulity. "I just want to know when you turned into Arsène Lupin, that's all."

"Tricia, _I_ didn't steal them." Gordon caught his breath just then, aware that with the slightest stress on the 'I', he'd given everything away. _But what the hell_, he thought, _you were probably going to do that anyway_. Tricia, to give her credit, didn't miss it either.

"So who did?" she asked, "and, while I think of it, what's all this got to do with that mask you asked me to fix up? If you say 'nothing', I'll smack you," she finished.

Reminding himself of the blunt honesty tactic, Gordon sighed, drew his hands down his face and said, "All right. I've become involved with a mysterious masked man with a talent for thievery, all thanks to my father, who rescued him from a burning detention centre, patched him up and sent him my way. Is that any better?"

In the brief silence that followed this statement, Gordon heard a police siren shriek past a few streets away. It wasn't until this background detail had died away that Tricia began to laugh.

"You're good," she cackled, casting him a sidelong look, "you really are." When her laughter had subsided, she continued. "Never mind, though. If you don't want to tell me, fair enough, but I still want to know what this has to do with me."

Gordon leaned over the table, scooping the diamonds back into the bag and tweaking the drawstring tight once more. He didn't respond until they were safely stowed away.

"I'd like to find a buyer for these," he said, eventually. "I'd go down to Hatton Garden, only I've got a shrewd idea that the police might be on the lookout in that area."

"No kidding," Tricia replied, although there was a faintly glazed, distant cast to her eyes as she said this. Gordon sat back, perturbed, but she seemed to recover after a second or two. "All right," she went on, "but what makes you think I know any fences?"

"Sixth sense," Gordon shot back, smiling somewhat bitterly. When she pierced him with another kilowatt stare, he conceded and said, "Sorry, it was just a long shot, really. _Do_ you know any?"

"As it happens, I do," Tricia said, "but in future, don't assume, all right? You great pillock." This last shot was fired with enough good humour to convince Gordon that her feelings weren't mortally injured, and he exhaled.

"So, can you set something up for me?" He watched her hesitate, and added, "I'll give you five per cent for your trouble."

That appeared to settle matters. Tricia smiled, and extracted her mobile phone. "Okay," she said, "I'll just go and make a quick call, all right?" Without waiting for a response, she bounced up from the armchair and slipped out into the hall, pulling the door closed behind her.

When she'd gone, Gordon sagged, sliding back into the sofa cushions, feeling the incriminating weight of the jewels in his pocket. For what must be the hundredth time in the last week, he wondered what on earth he was getting himself mired in. It was, of course, true that after the first few minutes he'd spent with V, he was probably already in far too deep to extract himself.

This, though, was out of the realms of the peculiar and into the deep waters of dangerous. The only reason that he'd even countenanced this move was that holding onto the diamonds in the long term was the one option that he felt he didn't really have; his only two choices were to give them back to V or sell them and, if he were perfectly honest with himself, the former decision would have been a very traumatic one.

Gordon poured himself another glass of water and then, his hand acting on autopilot, reached for the whisky bottle and added a dash of that to his glass as well. The resultant cocktail was faintly nauseating but he drained it anyway, gagging once, feeling that this was scarcely the time to go completely teetotal.

Tricia returned, stowing her phone away as she did so. Gordon looked up into her face and, as he did so, halted dead in the middle of framing an innocent inquiry. Her expression was a bizarre confusion of several smaller components; so much so that he found it impossible to distinguish any one element. In any case, this eerie physiognomic study was replaced soon enough by a bright smile, and Tricia grabbed her coat from the back of the chair.

"Ready?" she said. Gordon stared, still tasting the whisky and water bubbling gently at the back of his throat.

"_Now?_" he asked, disbelieving. Tricia nodded shortly. "Yes," she saidd. "No time like the present, is there?"

She led the way out of the door without another word, although it was impossible not to see that even as she turned, that curiously skewed expression had returned to her face and, this time, remained there. Gordon felt a tiny twitch of unease pick at his stomach, but shoved it down firmly.

* * *

><p>At Tricia's insistence, they walked to their rendezvous; it wasn't far away, she told him. Gordon kept his head down as they moved through the dozing streets, although it seemed to him that even as much as they passed very few people along the way, the city itself was watching them through one slanted green eye, like a cat feigning sleep. They came, at length, to Wimpole Street. Tricia nodded left, indicating a narrow, foetid alley leading off the main thoroughfare, running between a Burger King and an abandoned warehouse.<p>

The moon, though it was sailing high somewhere over their heads, was sequestered behind a modest veil of cloud at that moment, and the alley deepened and closed in, almost to the point of claustrophobia, as they left the streetlights behind them. Tricia indicated a steel door in the wall of the warehouse with a curt tilt of her head, and then turned the handle, leading the way inside.

Gordon twitched violently as the door banged shut behind him; the sound had a hint of grim finality about it. Once more, he lingered on the promontory of retreat, but once more he stamped down hard upon that hesitancy, swallowed his unease and followed Tricia down the narrow passageway.

A second door opened out onto a small flight of stairs that led down into a windowless room, quite bare of furniture aside from one plain wooden table and two chairs set each side of it. The chair on the far side was occupied, although its resident was rising to greet them. He was a short but broad-shouldered Turk, shaven-headed to the point of gleaming, and regarding the world from beneath unruly black brows; his eyes themselves were set so deep that they were hard to see, let alone to scrutinise for subtext.

He wasn't alone. Four other men stood some way behind him, any one of whom would have attracted much more than passing attention in an identity parade and any one of whom looked very much as if he would have the words 'career criminal' written right the way through him as if he were a stick of Brighton rock. One of them wore a gruesome pink scar from the corner of his mouth to the point of his cheekbone. It looked fairly fresh.

Tricia stepped forward, ostensibly the intermediary, and nodded carefully at the Turk before turning back to Gordon.

"This is Tazmir," she said, by way of introduction, although Gordon couldn't help but notice a thin, tainted edge to her voice as she spoke. Still, he extended a hand. Tazmir leaned across the table, shook it, and settled back down again, waving a hand at the vacant chair. Only when Gordon was comfortably seated did he speak up at last.

"Trish tells me you've got something you want to...offload," he stated, his accent pure Stepney vintage. Gordon shifted in his chair, then pulled the diamonds out of his pocket and emptied them carefully onto the table. The gems slipped and scattered slightly, but otherwise formed a remarkably neat cone that the other man regarded with surprising equanimity. He extracted a jeweller's loupe from his pocket, screwed it into his eye, then reached out and plucked one gem from amongst its fellows, scrutinising it minutely.

Gordon waited, floating in a sickly stew of impatience and nerves, as the other man muttered something unintelligible. Finally, he looked up, removing the loupe and setting it aside with painstaking care, dropping the diamond back onto the heap. His mouth formed a thin line.

"They're marked," he said, almost as if this would mean something. Gordon knew that his face must have registered his lack of understanding quite plainly, for the Turk went on, slightly impatiently. "Little laser inscription on the band," he explained. "Looks like a bog-standard Kimberley mine marking so that's not such a big wahoo, but it's gonna affect the price a bit."

"How much _can_ you give me for them?" Gordon asked, although he was sinking further and further into a pressing desire for escape with every passing second.

"Nothing," Tazmir told him. Gordon's stomach plunged, although not without backflipping artfully on its way down. He searched for an adequately polite response, reaching out meanwhile to gather the stones back up again. As he poured them back into their bag, however, Tazmir spoke up once more.

"I don't think you caught my drift, mate," he said, quite amicably. "I didn't say I wouldn't take 'em. I just said I wouldn't give you anything for 'em."

Gordon tensed like a watch spring as full comprehension finally pounced upon him, although his muscles appeared to have betrayed him by seizing up and resolutely refusing to act. A tidal wave of sudden, gut-wrenching fear crashed over him, and he struggled with his recalcitrant tongue and vocal cords.

Before he could marshal these forces, however, he saw Tazmir jerk his head, signalling his companions. Two of them moved behind Gordon, and rough hands clamped down on his shoulders, pinning him into his seat. At this, he gasped, although it seemed that was the only sound he was capable of producing for the time being.

One of the men pulled a pair of cable ties out of a pocket, and fixed Gordon's wrists to the arms of the chair with an ease that spoke volumes about long and detailed practice at such less than tender ministrations.

_Why the hell aren't you putting up a fight, _he asked himself, distantly, and this seemed to strike a match in some small powder keg, albeit a little too late. He pulled at the restraints on his wrists, although he achieved nothing more than a biting pain that had him chewing the inside of his cheek to distract himself from it. He stared around him wildly, and then looked back at Tazmir with the greatest of difficulty.

"Look," he said, slowly, his heart thumping so hard that he was sure it must he affecting his voice, "just take them. They're stolen anyway. I won't go to the police." Tazmir smiled beatifically, reached into his pocket and produced a pearl-handled straight razor, flipping it open, holding the blade up so that it glinted fiercely and threw a beam of white light into Gordon's eye for a moment.

"Oh, I know you won't, mate," he said, still running his eyes along the razor's very edge. "In fact, I'm _positive_ you won't."

Just then, Tricia spoke up, stepping between the two and laying her palms on the table, turning to Tazmir, her brows knotted.

"Taz, this wasn't the deal!" she said, her voice speckled with agitation. "I told you I'd get them, and I did. You don't have to..."

"Shut up," he responded, quite casually, finally lowering the razor a little, the better to return her stare. "You did a good job, babe, but why not leave the rest to the blokes?" Incredibly, he winked at her. She failed to respond in kind, but threw Gordon a fretful glance before turning back to the Turk.

"Taz, _please_. Listen. You don't want to do this," she yelped, her voice cracking through any attempt at sensibility like water breaching a failing dam. Tazmir frowned brutally, reached up and wrapped one hand around the back of her neck, dragging her head down until their eyes were inches apart. She struggled fitfully for a second, but ceased all fight as his fingers tightened.

"No. _You_ listen," he growled into her face. "You got three choices. Stay here and keep quiet, go outside and keep quiet, or join your friend. You'll get your cut..." he went on, releasing his grip, allowing Tricia to stagger back, rubbing at the red blotches on her neck, "...one way or another." He flourished the razor once more to illustrate his meaning. Tricia, seeming hypnotised by the shining blade, backed away uncertainly.

"Tricia..." Gordon said, faintly, desperately, as she retreated. She cast him a wide-eyed look that tried to convey absolute apology, but was too well-steeped in guilt and terror, and then turned about and fled the scene as if Cerberus were snapping at her heels.

Once outside, Tricia slammed the outer door closed behind her and then leaned back against it, her heartbeat and breathing racing against one another like startled colts. She shook her head once, blindly, and felt her body unclench somewhat.

The moon swung behind a bank of thin cloud at that point, its gleam not cut off but suddenly subdued, and the light in the alley flickered and died to a ghostly glow that illuminated nothing but itself. Tricia's head jerked up, her eyes scuttling from side to side in the newfound gloom as if she had only just realised where she was. Thinking rapidly and only half-clearly, she pushed herself away from the door.

She turned to meet nothing but blackness. Her feet moved of their own accord, taking her back one step; her gaze, however, was already turning up, with the inevitability of impending doom, to meet the face of the figure that barred her way.

Tricia loosed a shriek. This was what her mind had framed, at least, but what emerged from her lips was a soft, pitiful squeal. That black-clad angel still smiled gently down upon her, but now she submerged herself in blind instinct and swung around, meaning to run, even into the blind end of the alley, _anywhere_, as long as it was away from this dreadful apparition.

This opportunity never came. She had barely moved an inch when an iron grip landed upon her shoulder, pulling her back into the figure's embrace, and then she was closed up against a cool, firm and implacable body, struggling weakly. She gasped for air again, this time meaning to scream her lungs out, this time intending to appeal for either help or mercy but, before she could even draw sufficient breath, a gloved hand slipped itself over her mouth and cut off all further pleading.

The figure's cloak fell around her shoulders now, enveloping them both. Tricia hardly registered this; her senses were already fogged over with panic and she had frozen like a mouse in the coils of a python, her stillness born of the same despairing instinct for self-preservation. The shadow, however, was leaning down, exhaling into her ear, its breath a lover's caress.

This soft susurrus was the last thing Tricia ever heard. The hand was removed from her mouth, cupped around her chin and pulled viciously to one side, breaking her neck with a brief but sickening crack of vertebrae.

V wrapped one arm around the girl as she convulsed, pinning her against his chest. When that reflexive shudder died away, he loosed his grip slightly, and her head lolled back against his shoulder, her eyes already glazing over, filled with nothing but moonlight. Only now did he release her, watching her limp corpse slide into a shallow puddle.

Then, without a backward glance or any further ado, he turned to the door and pulled it open.

* * *

><p>In the uncompromising light of the warehouse, Tazmir grinned broadly at Gordon, and heaved himself out of his chair, moving around the table. He laid the razor on the table-top, mere inches from Gordon's firmly bound right hand, deliberately taunting, and stepped back to study his prey for a moment.<p>

Gordon dropped his chin and closed his eyes. He had had no idea, before now, of the power of pure and unadulterated terror; had not one clue as to how crippling it could be. It filled his head from side to side and from point to point with turbulent black storm clouds and thwarted his every faint attempt at thought, movement or speech. All he now seemed to be capable of was a febrile quivering that insinuated itself down his spine to every extremity and, at last, even took over his ears. He scarcely heard Tazmir retrieve the razor from the table and open it to its fullest extent.

At that moment, the door at the top of the stairs swung back with a curiously intimate creak. Tazmir glanced up, his mouth already framing the beginnings of some irate query. Gordon watched the man's face sag in incomprehension, and twisted his head around to see who or what had interrupted these grim proceedings.

V, framed in the doorway, dipped his head in a slow and decorous bow before moving delicately down the few steps and pushing his cloak back over his shoulders. Gordon's eye lit at once upon V's belt, and the six exquisite silver-handled knives now sheathed in it. With a terror-sharpened eye for detail, Gordon noticed how the pommels glinted, star-like, beneath the light of the neon tubes.

Tazmir's mouth, which was still hanging open, snapped shut once more. He took two steps back.

"Who the fuck are _you_?" he demanded.

"Cry 'havoc', and let slip the dogs of war," said V, "that this foul deed shall smell above the earth with carrion men, groaning for burial."

The Turk had apparently heard enough. He nodded sharply at his companions, two of whom circled around and approached V from both sides, although with care, their eyes fixed to his hands. V remained, it appeared, blithely unconcerned by this. Gordon, trying to breathe through a throat that seemed to be coated with gypsum, could discern no hint of expression at all; the mask was, for once, rendered silent. Nevertheless, some hitherto unheard sense made him brace himself.

There was scarcely time. As one of the men reached out, V dropped his hands to his belt, withdrawing two knives with a discordant, jarring slide and ring that sent an echo around the warehouse. Before this had died away he dropped to one knee, arms flung out, striking up and out to either side, and was rising once more from this crouch even as the blades struck home.

Razor-sharp Toledo steel sliced through cloth, met flesh, and still did not stop. V continued to draw his weapons upward, his movement minimalist and almost balletic. Its result, however, was less than graceful. Both men gurgled as their bowels were unzipped, and hot tangles and loops of blood-soaked intestine poured out of the savage slashes.

V, sheathing the knives once more, sidestepped adroitly and grasped a collar in each hand before his victims could collapse. He dropped his head, studying them coldly for a moment, the mask turning from side to side with vague contempt, and then released his hold. The two landed in the glutinous, steaming piles of their own viscera, twitching like landed fish.

This whole dance, from greeting to gutting, had taken just a pocketful of seconds; time enough, though, for Tazmir to back away, almost tripping over his own feet in the process. Part of his mind – the part that had kept him alive and reasonably healthy for the past twenty years – considered fleeing, but sheer, blood-thumping outrage was holding his common sense hostage and, besides, V stood between him and the only unlocked door.

"What are you hanging about for?" he barked at his two remaining associates. They glanced at one another, and then one drew a pistol from inside his coat and raised it, hand shaking almost imperceptibly. Too slowly, however. V reached out, quite without looking, and turned off the lights.

Gordon whimpered as the room was plunged into near-absolute darkness, although he heard Tazmir yelp at one and the same time. There was a tiny, breathless pause before V's voice cut through the shadows, his every syllable hinting at vengeful pleasure.

"_I_ can see in the dark," he purred. With that, there were several light footsteps, a whisper and flap of cloth and the scrape of steel, and then hell's finest fury erupted in the gloom.

The gun went off, just once, and in that momentary, blinding muzzle flash Gordon saw V's blade sweep out a shining geometric arc with annihilation at the end of it. This ended in a wet, bubbling scream and a sharp clatter as the gun was sent spinning away into a corner, and then Gordon jerked back in mindless horror as something warm and sticky splashed across his face in the dark. Though he was scarcely aware of it, he was shedding free and unfettered tears now, his breath laboured, his mind overloaded with fright and incomprehension.

Something hit the wall, heavily. Someone shouted, their voice rough and guttural, and then there was a strident bang which spawned an ear-splitting screech of agony. There came a grinding, snapping sound from the far corner; a gristly sound, a sound with a rusty saw-toothed edge to it. Only then did the darkness reclaim its peace, and nothing further split the shadows but a hoarse, desperate and, somehow, not quite human panting.

The lights flickered back on now, and V paced back to the centre of the room, hands clasped in front of him, contemplative in a cocoon of complete silence that he wore just as comfortably as his cloak. Gordon blinked back the clouds that were threatening to overwhelm his vision, and spat at the taste of hot, tangy blood on his lips.

The warehouse resembled an abattoir. Gordon hung his head, weeping quietly and steadily now, but not before several monstrous images had cauterised his brain. The blood painted across the floor and sprayed in copious gouts across the wall. The sprawling corpses, one of which now had his head twisted around through one hundred and eighty degrees. Lastly, the sight of Tazmir, a long, gleaming knife punched with murderous force through the back of his hand, pinning him to the table. He had wrapped his other hand around the grip and was trying to draw it out, to free himself, but with no success. Pain had rendered him disoriented and weak and, in any case, the point of the blade was sunk a full inch deep in the wood beneath his palm.

At that point, the near silence of the room was flavoured with a distant, muted sound; one that, if it hadn't been for the stillness, would have passed unheeded...some way away, Big Ben was marking out the midnight hour. V moved up behind Tazmir, his every movement languid and fluid.

"I go, and it is done; the bell invites me," he said, simply, before stepping back and drawing another knife from his belt. With that signature economy of movement, he slipped this around Tazmir's throat and drew it across; his touch was so efficient, and the blade so sharp, that for a split second it wasn't certain that any contact had even been made. Tazmir coughed once. He coughed again, this time exhaling a stream of scarlet bubbles that ran down his chin. Then a startling waterfall of fresh blood poured from his throat and surged down his chest, and he went down like a falling domino, his head smacking into the table and his severed arteries continuing to pump their load onto the bare wood.

Moments ticked past, almost audibly. Gordon, his eyes still misted with tears, fixed his gaze on the spreading pool of blood on the table, watching it with that tranquillity which marked the quiet, leafy suburbs of insanity. One stray rivulet flowed gently over the surface, coming ever closer, and finally poured over the edge in a glutinous but steady trickle.

"Gordon," said V, from several thousand miles' distance. "Are you hurt?"

Gordon said nothing, although he raised his head a fraction and saw the knife in V's hand, studied the blood there too, and watched the single fat, glossy droplet which was sliding down the angled blade, preparing to fall. He thought, quite dreamily, that he would be perfectly content just to watch it for a while.

"_Gordon?_" V repeated, a shade more insistently. He followed the line of those wide, vacant eyes, sighed infinitesimally, shook the knife to remove the excess blood from it, and slipped it back into its sheath with a neat and decisive click. This done, he stepped closer and reached out. He lifted Gordon's chin gently but firmly and, seeing no gash or wound in his throat, released his hold.

This brief touch shook Gordon slightly; enough, at least, to rouse him halfway out of incipient catatonia. He screwed his eyes up to ease the burning in them, and opened them once more to see V circling the table like a buzzard, apparently locked in patient cogitation.

He paused in this circuit and cast a short but highly appraising glance over at the far side of the warehouse and at one of the dead men then, with only mild transition, at the diamonds on the table. Finally, he swung his eyes over to Gordon who, for his part, found that he was in no position to return that incisive, calculating stare.

At last, V circled back around the table and moved alongside Gordon's chair. He cut the plastic strips on his wrists and then laid a hand on Gordon's arm as he stood, wobbling on his feet but managing to retain his balance after a momentary struggle.

"Gordon," V said, his voice pitched low and subtle, his tone that which a doctor might use to talk a man down from a window ledge, "I must know if you touched anything in here."

"No," was Gordon's eventual answer, after which he shook his head vaguely. "I...at least, I don't remember doing so." He raised a hand and wiped furiously at his cheek, pulling his hand back and observing the slick bloodstains on his fingers; not with his former frozen detachment, but with some new, lower mental plateau of manageable horror and nausea. He reached into his pocket for a handkerchief, but V took his wrist in a gentle grip.

"Go home," he said. "Touch _nothing_ until you are there. Use the handkerchief. Do you understand?" he added, as Gordon's brow wrinkled briefly.

"Yes. _Yes_," he said, with emphasis. At long last, V released his grasp upon Gordon's wrist, and turned away.

It wasn't until he heard the door click shut behind him that V reached out and plucked the diamonds from the table, dangling the bag between finger and thumb for a moment. Drawing it open, he reached in and extracted several of the stones with the utmost delicacy, his gaze passing over their facets and over their rainbows. Then, he closed his fist upon the gems, shielding their allure.

There was a lot to be done before sunrise.


	9. Confusion

"Is there any reason, Inspector," said a sharp voice, "why such poor results on your part could not have been communicated over the telephone?"

McLennan stared at the Viscount for a second, dropping his gaze only when he suspected that this might be construed as verging upon impertinent. Shifting his notepad around on the pretext of cogitation, he looked back up once more and studied the man now glaring at him like a schnauzer with incipient attack in mind.

Viscount Scarsdale had turned out to be a lean, wiry sixty-year old with a neat goatee beard that was only just tending to grey. He had agreed to travel to London with, McLennan considered, palpably bad grace. However, police procedure had made it necessary to secure certain details in person. Not that this had had much effect upon the Viscount's simmering temper, but it had at least calmed McLennan's nerves to be able to pass the buck in this manner.

"Apologies, your Lordship," he said, soothingly. "As I explained, to protect your security of information it was essential that you brought the paperwork to us in person."

"Yes, yes," the Viscount snapped, passing over a slim plastic folder with several A4 photocopies slipped inside it. Passing his eye over the very top copy, McLennan noted the elegant De Beers letterhead, and then set it aside for the moment.

"This is the complete list?" he asked. There was an impatient nod from across the desk, accompanied by a small, nasal sigh.

"It is. There were seventy-two diamonds in that shipment and each one was marked at source. These marks are now in your hands, Inspector, so if you have everything you need from me, I'll be taking my leave."

McLennan showed his guest out into reception, pondering all the way downstairs as to why it was that the nobility felt that they had, by virtue of their position, unlimited liberty to be rude, condescending and short-tempered without having to apologise for it at any point. As if to make this perfectly clear, the Viscount did not deign to shake hands; he merely nodded bluntly at McLennan and stalked out of the main doors towards his Bentley and its waiting driver.

Finch was just walking in the door. He stood aside as the Viscount brushed past him with a snort of irritation, and then rolled his eyes at the man's retreating back.

McLennan waited until Finch drew alongside him, and then explained matters as they went back upstairs. Finch interrupted at only one point.

"So, the old goat didn't think it was worth it to invest in personal markings?" he said, sourly.

"Apparently not," McLennan replied, shrugging. "I wish _I_ could afford to take a relaxed approach to nigh on half a million quid."

"He doesn't look very relaxed at the moment," commented Finch, as he pushed into the office. McLennan handed him the list that the Viscount had dropped off, and then wandered over to the drinks machine. By the time he turned back with two cups of mediocre coffee, Finch was nose-deep in the photocopies, his normally morose countenance now folded up in studied concentration. He looked up briefly, accepted the coffee, and returned to his perusal.

McLennan was picking at a stray thread on his shirt cuff when Finch grunted, closed the folder and laid it on the desk in front of his superior. "Now there's odd," he said, evenly.

"Sorry? What is?" asked McLennan, looking up in genuine bewilderment, his coffee cup halfway to his mouth. He set it down again as Finch folded his arms before continuing.

"Didn't you notice, sir?"

"Notice _what_?" said McLennan, now faintly irritated.

Dragging another chair over, Finch straddled it and opened the folder again, turning it around. He poked at the list of serial numbers on the paper, running his fingertip down the figures.

"They're in numerical order," he explained, patiently, "but they're not sequential." The inspector wrinkled his nose, leaned back expansively and sighed.

"So I see," he said, calmly, "but what of it?"

"If you'll remember, sir, the shipping notes indicated a brand new consignment from De Beers." When McLennan continued to frown, Finch straightened up and went on. "If that were the case, they'd have sequential numbers," he finished, then lapsed into an uneasy silence.

_God in heaven_, McLennan said to himself, battling a sudden, overbearing urge to beat his own head against the desk. It was as clear as day now, and the only reason he hadn't spotted this glaring error himself was due to the fact that he'd been rattled by the Viscount's spiky, acerbic manner. He gulped at his coffee, wincing as he burned his tongue slightly, and sat forward.

"It looks like there's a little more to this than we first thought," he observed blandly, studying the photocopies once more.

He was about to continue with this growing development of consciousness when his desk phone rang on an internal line. Snatching it up, he barked into the receiver.

"Yes?" He listened, continued to listen, and Finch watched in puzzlement as the inspector's brows furled in confusion for a moment. This expression lasted for a few seconds before it was replaced by a twisted look of whey-faced incredulity. "Right, we'll be straight round," he said flatly, and dropped the receiver back into its cradle with a soft click.

"We've got a murder to attend to," he told Finch, his eyes still dull with apprehension. "Several murders, in fact," he added, wearily. "Let's get going."

* * *

><p>The pair headed north under a surprisingly strong sun, and Finch eventually wound the window down a little as he negotiated the eternally snarled mess of traffic in Regent Street. McLennan wondered fleetingly whether they ought to use the siren, and then thought better of it. It wasn't as if they were attending an emergency. Dead bodies didn't usually get any deader. Besides, every available whiff of space on the road had apparently been filled; nobody would be able to get out of their way even if they'd been inclined to.<p>

Finch swung the car into Wimpole Street, and it was at this point that McLennan groaned inwardly. A number of reporters were already converging on the scene, although so far they were being shepherded back by a phalanx of uniforms while a constable began to cordon the scene off, winding a strip of tape around a parking meter and running it out off the spool. He felt a heartening stab of pride at the efficiency of the Met, and then turned to Finch as the sergeant drew the car to a halt on the far side of the road.

"You get along inside and see what's what," he said, hearing the tiredness in his own voice as he spoke, "and I'll deal with that lot. Okay?"

"Right you are, sir," Finch said, shortly, and climbed out of the car, crossing the road at an angle, giving the press a vastly wide berth, although they didn't seem to be too bothered by him. McLennan watched him show his warrant card to the officer at the entrance to the alley, and then disappear around the corner. Only when Finch was lost to sight did McLennan make his own entrance.

The press displayed far more interest in the Chief Inspector than they had in his subordinate, and surged forward in a tide of muttered arguments and elbowing. McLennan had time to ponder that it might only be reporters' inborn tendency against cooperation that stood between the world and a slow death by media intrusion, and then turned to face the advancing horde, hands clasped behind his back.

"Chief Inspector?" called a voice that McLennan was dismayed to recognise. "Alan Kennedy, _Sun_. What's going on here, please?" He watched Kennedy push his way to the front of the crowd, leading the way by virtue of his physical size and his naturally belligerent personality, and step up in front of McLennan with an artificially enforced smile plastered across his face. McLennan did not return this.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Kennedy," he said, not bothering to keep the ice from coating his tone. "We're here to investigate a report of a death or deaths, and that's all I'm at liberty to say for the time being, I'm afraid." Kennedy flipped his notebook up with an air of professionalism that told a slew of lies about the man that lay behind it, and scrawled this down.

"Thank you," mumbled Kennedy, still writing. Finally, he looked up again. "I wonder if you have a comment about the rising levels of violent crime in London, Inspector?"

_Only that you're not helping me to investigate it, you useless vermin,_ McLennan thought, although he bit down on his tongue to stop these words on their way to his mouth, painfully conscious that there were things a prudent Chief Inspector never, _ever_ said to someone with a pen in their hand. Instead, he readjusted the set of his shoulders and adopted a very carefully neutral expression before he responded.

"You may reassure your readers that crime of all kinds is well under control in this city, Mr. Kennedy," he said, far more smoothly than he would have done if he'd allowed himself free rein with his feelings, "and that we will investigate this report with all due efficiency and diligence. Good day to you," he finished, and swung around, putting a definite end to the conversation, although he swore that he could feel the reporter smirking at his back as he walked away.

The officer at the alley straightened his back as the inspector approached, although McLennan felt obliged to observe proper procedure, especially as he was still well within sight of the press. He fished his wallet out and showed the officer his ID, then ducked beneath the tape and wandered down the narrow, grimy thoroughfare.

He wondered why there wasn't a second officer stationed at the door to the property, until a quick glance around showed him that this was a blind turning with no other entrance and only one door leading out into it. He turned the handle, hearing the subtle squeak of neglected hinges, and negotiated the dimly lit hallway with no small amount of trepidation.

Elbowing the inner door aside, he started down the steps, and then pulled up short as the smell wrapped itself around him and crawled up into his nostrils. He turned his head, but not before he'd taken in the sight of the bodies – and various component parts thereof – decorating the room as if he were attending the aftermath of the world's most morbid party.

He saw, as he backed up a step, that Finch was engaged in a quiet conversation with one of the scene of crime investigators. The sergeant wrapped his hand around a small plastic bag, glanced up, and studied his superior officer with evident concern.

McLennan struggled with his rebellious stomach, swallowing several times to stem the tide of searing bile that was threatening to climb up his gullet. Finally acknowledging defeat, he turned around and stumbled back up the narrow passage, wanting fresh air, even if that air was tainted with London's perpetual, tangible background odour of fast food and traffic fumes. Anything to wash the reek of congealing blood and spilled entrails from his sinuses.

He burst out into the weak sunlight once more, found a low, crumbling brick wall and sat down heavily, his head in his hands. His mouth filled with a flood of loose, stringy saliva, and he swallowed once again, clearing his throat desperately.

The door inched back behind his shoulder and Finch slipped out, blinking in the unaccustomed light. He shook his head, linked his hands behind his back and studied McLennan for a quiet moment.

"You okay, sir?" he said, eventually. McLennan pulled himself up a little, and nodded.

"Yes," he said, slowly, "it just took me by surprise, that's all. I'll be all right."

"No shame in it," Finch replied, with, McLennan thought, surprising gentility for a hard-shelled Northerner. "We've all been there. You've not seen a murder scene before?"

"No, I have, of course I have, but not..." here he turned and waved a vague hand at the door, "...not like _that_."

"I'm sorry about that," said Finch, as he reached into his pocket. "I ought to've warned you. The coroner hasn't been round to pick up yet. Anyway, they haven't quite polished up in there, but they did find something interesting..." Finch's voice tailed off as he handed over the plastic bag that he'd taken from the investigator.

Taking it wordlessly, McLennan held it up to the light, his brow furrowing as he studied the contents. They gleamed joyfully at him even through the plastic: three gorgeous brilliant diamonds, shifting against one another as he tilted the bag from one side to another. Something slotted into place in his memory, and he stared up at Finch, his eyes widening slightly.

"Are these...?"

"Not sure yet, we'll have to see if they're marked," said Finch, lowering his voice a notch, "but I'd say it's looking like a possibility."

"Right," said McLennan, distractedly. "Okay, so what else have we got so far?"

"A right bloody mess...no pun intended," Finch told him. "Five bodies – four male, one female. No ID on the blokes, but we have several likely leads on the woman. Causes of death will have to wait but, so far, it all looks fairly obvious.

"Whoever did this certainly wasn't trying to be subtle, sir. One broken neck, two disembowellings, one severed femoral artery plus several deep wounds to the chest and neck, and one poor bugger had his hand nailed to the table..." he paused uncomfortably here, waiting until McLennan had finished wincing, "...before the killer cut his throat."

McLennan had been staring levelly at the ground as this short, nasty recital flowed over him. He raised his head now and directed a hopeless stare at Finch.

"What did I do to deserve all of this on _my_ watch?" he asked. He watched the sergeant shift and shrug, and then went on. "Never mind. Rhetorical question," he said, handing the diamonds back and hauling himself up off the wall with a light sigh.

"It'll be a while before we can get a result on the prints and find out who this lot are," Finch volunteered. "All we can do for now is trace the woman. We recovered a mobile. Of course, it might not be hers, but working on the assumption that it is, I'll get a call log from the network."

"Good man," McLennan said, finding that he meant it. He was finally beginning to develop a faint liking for Finch. Although they were apparently polar opposites in just about every aspect, be it social, intellectual or cultural, the fellow seemed to be fairly intelligent, naturally observant and far more conscientious than most.

"Have we got enough officers to look after things?" he said, after a pause for thought. Finch nodded.

"We've got plenty of our lads out front, and they know full well they're not to let the press anywhere near the place."

"In that case, let's get back," said McLennan, decisively. "I assume all the portable evidence has already been moved?"

"Yes, sir."

With that, McLennan led the way back up the alley to the street, lifting the tape a little to allow them to duck beneath it. The pavement had also been cordoned off on the nearside, and several police cars were parked along the kerb to reinforce the point. Nevertheless, the citizenry, with that ancient, universal and unerring instinct for a free show, were gathering on the far side of the road, some pointing, but most content merely to gawk. McLennan experienced a mild twinge of world-weariness at this sight.

"You can't change people, can you?" said Finch from behind his shoulder, as if he'd received a telepathic broadcast of the inspector's current thought process.

"No," McLennan admitted, "although you have to wonder if they'd be half as nosy if they knew what it looked like in there."

The coroner's van passed them as they drove back to Scotland Yard. As he craned his neck to watch it go by, McLennan couldn't help but wonder whether anyone had told the crew to bring a few extra bags.

* * *

><p>The small hours, and the early chill that they brought with them, tightened their grip upon the city until it squeaked. Gordon lifted the curtain back an inch, gazing out at the slow, insidious fog that was filling the street outside and curling over his hedge like the tail of a prowling tomcat.<p>

He jumped as something bumped against his thigh, then remembered the whisky bottle that he still held in his hand and, raising it, took a generous draught before dropping the curtain once more. He'd tried to catch up on the sleep that had eluded him the previous night, but with a singular lack of success, and had ultimately decided to resort to tried and tested means of achieving oblivion.

The radio was turned to Classic FM and currently issuing some tranquil notes from Debussy, although this did little to disrupt the visual symphony of maiming and slaughter that was still echoing in Gordon's memory. Even while his eyes were open, he was assailed by distressing mental clips, short but brutal in the extreme. What they'd be like if he ever managed to dream again, he didn't dare contemplate.

The doorbell cut through both the peace of the radio and the ghoulish reminiscence it seemed to be fast blending itself with, and Gordon shivered violently in a way that bypassed his higher brain centres and issued straight from his cerebellum. Knowing who would be at the door, knowing that all he could expect from answering that summons was to be plunged back into the horror he'd been trying to escape for the past twenty-four hours, he experienced a simple desire to hide under his bed until it went away.

His unconscious, however, understanding that the world was not nearly as simple as it was often made out to be, carried him out into the hall and put his hand on the latch.

V stepped through the door and swung it closed behind him as Gordon backed away in spite of his every effort to remain outwardly calm and composed. His eyes fell to the knives at V's belt, now resolutely cleaned and polished, but his mind's eye had them coated with the fresh blood that had bedewed them just the previous night. He twitched, and only with a Herculean presence of mind did he drag his gaze up to meet that clean white countenance and those empty eye sockets.

There was one split second when the mask tilted down, and Gordon felt V's stare fall upon the whisky bottle, but he apparently reserved both comment and judgement and merely folded his hands together.

"Good evening, Gordon," he said, his voice lilting gently. "I wished to see that you were all right. I would have accompanied you home last night, but there was much I had to do."

Gordon's mind stuttered for a moment, and when he spoke he was certain that his speech would reflect this, but to his surprise he managed to convey a great deal of clarity.

"I'm all right," he replied. He then looked down at his feet and, for an unexplored reason, changed direction. "No, I'm not, not really. I'm very far from all right, in fact."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

_Are you?_ Gordon asked himself. He wasn't at all certain of it. He was tired and distressed and, right now, a shade drunk, but something perched itself upon his shoulder and pointed out, in a small yet insistent voice, that nothing about V's tone conveyed any more sorrow or regret than the man could very easily dismiss if it suited him to do so.

_And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him._

Gordon tightened his grip upon the neck of the bottle as that verse slithered through his mind, although nothing he could do would remove it from his consideration now that it had taken root there. He struggled with a passing, surreal experience that, for a second, lent the mask in front of his eyes a skull-like quality.

Finding that this jolt had dwindled and that he could now breathe somewhat more freely, Gordon waved a hand across the hall.

"Please," he said, weakly. "Come in. We need to talk, and if it's not dealt with now then I don't think it ever will be."

"As you wish," V breathed, and followed Gordon into the living room. Gordon sank onto the sofa, although V remained standing, not far inside the door, and Gordon was hit with the sudden, piercing impression that everything he was about to say had, in a sense, already passed between them quite without the need for mere words. Even so, he cleared his throat, set the whisky aside and twined his hands nervously around one another.

"Firstly," he began, "I want you to know that I'm very grateful to you for saving my life last night."

"That is not necessary," V said in response, gesturing somewhat cryptically as he did so. "I shall only say to you what your father said to me: that gratitude is neither necessary nor meaningful where obligation runs above the simple exchange of favours and owes itself, instead, to the far more binding accords of duty."

"I understand," said Gordon, although he knew that he didn't, not fully. "However, with that in mind, you need to appreciate that I haven't taken any decisions lightly."

"I have never believed otherwise," V returned, and then fell silent once more, waiting patiently for continuation. Gordon stared upward for long moments, and then looked back at the mask, which was now radiating some cool, miasmic quality that he couldn't identify, though something about it settled on him like a light mist and suggested that he needn't be afraid of what he was trying to communicate.

"I don't know how to say this without giving offence," Gordon said, very tentatively. V took one pace forward now. Gordon, though everything he'd been through in the last several days suggested that he should flinch, did not do so.

"Allow me, then, to come to your aid," said V, as he shook his shoulders to settle his cloak around him. "You need not say a word. I believe I see in your eye that you feel unable to continue our association."

Gordon squeezed his own fingers so hard that he left shockingly white dents in his knuckles, and spoke without looking directly at V.

"Yes," he replied, softly. "That's what I'd been trying to get across."

"Why were you so afraid of saying this?" V asked, and Gordon was stunned to hear what was – or at least what sounded like – genuine and quite profound sadness in that silken tenor. He understood, now, what that reassuring sensation had sprung from.

"Had you forgotten my first parting words to you?" V continued. "If so, let me reiterate. I came to you with an empty hand, with little to offer you in return for your assistance, and I told you that you were beholden to nothing. To _nothing_, Gordon," he emphasised, slicing one hand through the air to stress this word. "It is as true now as it was then, and it pains me that you could ever have thought that I would make any insistence at all upon your kindness."

V at last fell silent save for a long, soft sigh, the sound given a subtle edge by the mask, and then moved even closer to Gordon, who looked up despairingly.

"I misunderstood," said Gordon, while trying to put an adequate frame around everything that was lining up inside him, clamouring for a stake in his voice. "I couldn't work out whether I was afraid of you or what you'd involved me in, or both, and I suppose that in that unholy mess, I lost sight of what you'd told me."

V nodded in accord. "It is often the way of things," he responded, "that man fails to understand the essential nature of honour.

"Please don't feel that you have any cause for contrition," V went on, head bowing briefly. "You are not the first to find yourself in this same situation, and I will say this aloud so that this time, there can be no misunderstanding: whereas I am driven solely by responsibility, you have passed through this state and into an arena that many will live out their entire lives not knowing, namely, that state of being both willing and able to go beyond what is necessary to balance an equation."

Gordon's head was spinning very, very slowly now. He repeated these words in the privacy of his mind, stumbled over every third one, and then – at some well-guarded border crossing in an otherwise saturated cortex – decided that he would only make sense of them after a long sleep. Their meaning had, nevertheless, filtered through to him, and he stood up uncertainly, caught in rare proximity to V, so close in fact that he could feel warm, honey-scented breath on his cheek.

This small, intimate moment passed, and V retreated, drawing the living room door open. Before he left, however, he turned over his shoulder and delivered one last parting thought.

"I do not believe in coincidence," he said, "but it seems to me that there must be some small component of random chance in this world, if only to provide enough uncertainty to keep us well-stocked with hope. That said, I wonder if you had ever considered which state of affairs you would choose if you were given the power of decision. Leaden fate or blind luck? It is entirely up to you, and you will find more of yourself in your answer than you ever will of me.

"Farewell, Gordon," he added, and drifted out of the room on silent feet.

Gordon sat down once more, hearing the front door open and close, staring at the far wall for a good few minutes afterward. The sound of a single blackbird outside the window roused him from this fugue, and reminded him that dawn couldn't be far behind this enterprising song. He cast a reflexive glance over at the bottle, but was eerily gratified to find that it held not one hundredth of the appeal that it had just a few hours previously.

Still listening to the blackbird, he pushed himself up from the sofa and headed for the hall, meaning to take to his bed and, damning the alarm clock, sleep for as long as his body required of him. Though he felt drained, unglued and turned inside-out by the exchange he'd just had with V, he was also very well aware that he'd gained by the conversation where he'd been expecting only to lose by it.

_Get to bed_, he told himself as he paused in the midst of this epiphany. _Personal revelations can wait; sleep can't_.

However, Gordon found himself pausing once more as he climbed gratefully into his bed. He lay down and pulled the blanket up to his chin before he paid full analysis to this last, small occurrence, and he found that there was something curious about it.

The voice had not been the one he'd been accustomed to hearing all his internal monologues delivered through; it had been a soft, insidious whisper that had almost seemed to crawl in from outside his mind. He closed his eyes, pursuing a decent dream, but even as he slipped seamlessly into this long-neglected state of affairs, he heard that sibilance again, repeating itself.

_This isn't over._


	10. Masquerade

The pathologist's reports, as McLennan had been expecting, made for very macabre reading.

Finch had been quite right about the killings. They were very far from subtle although, as much as he hated to admit to it, they also had a certain black, disturbing panache about them. McLennan ran his eye down the text, noting repeated use of the word 'exsanguination' and wondering, as he did so, why it was necessary to be so verbose.

There were a few tentative notes on the murder weapon or weapons, but depressingly little. It had been ascertained that all the cuts had been made with a double-bladed knife, but the length of the blade could not be determined as almost all the wounds were slashes rather than stabs, and the one exception – in the case of the poor bugger who'd been pinned to the table by his hand – wasn't nearly deep enough.

McLennan read downward, his mood heading in a similar direction to his eyes, and found the report on the woman.

There were faint marks on her chin, hinting that her neck had been broken barehanded, and with considerable force, too. He thought about this for a moment, cringed, and dispelled the mental image at once. There was also a cryptic note about a slight abrasion on her cheek, with a very nervous suggestion that she may have been killed outside and then dumped in the warehouse with the others.

Time of death was consistent for all five of the deceased; somewhere around midnight. They'd all died together, give or take a few minutes.

"Coffee, sir" said a voice, and a hand placed a paper cup down on the desk. McLennan twitched mightily and glanced up from the report; he hadn't even heard the sergeant enter the room.

"Thanks," he said, sipping at it gratefully. Wherever Finch had got the coffee, it was a great deal more palatable than anything that had ever issued forth from any machine at New Scotland Yard. "So," he continued. "Any news?"

"We've identified the girl," Finch told him, producing a wedge of papers and riffling through them. "Patricia Rose Garnet, aged twenty-two, worked in reprographics for a production company called Magnavision, and lived in Kentish Town with her parents." Finch stopped, and McLennan saw a bitter grimace pass across his face like cloud-shadow. "I've sent a couple of uniforms down there to tell them. We're going to need a formal identification."

"Not easy," said McLennan, shaking his head soberly. It was one of a few aspects of his job that he'd never quite come to terms with, and he'd had the unlovely task of informing relatives once or twice himself when he'd been in blue. He shuddered, picked himself free of these clinging memories and flapped a hand.

"What about the others?"

"Right, yes," Finch breathed, and turned over a page. "Forensics only just came back on the prints, but you won't be too surprised to hear that they're all villains."

"You're right, I'm not. Names?" grunted McLennan, turning to his computer and logging into the criminal records database.

"Tazmir Demirkan," Finch recited, "Wayne Grant, Nicholas Tresham and Andrew Bates." Finch shuffled the papers and set them down, moving behind the inspector's shoulder to study the screen. Several pages scrolled past before McLennan sighed heavily and removed his finger from the Arrow Down key.

"Okay, message understood," he said, with a sprinkling of irony. "This lot have been in and out like yoyos. That isn't an astoundingly helpful discovery, Sergeant."

"No, sir," said Finch, quietly, "but this is: we've got five bodies, but there were _six_ sets of fresh prints in there. We've got ourselves a suspect." With this, he laid a sheaf of paper down in front of McLennan and then backed away to allow him time to study it.

"Roger Wright," McLennan said, mostly to himself. "Armed robbery, breaking and entering, handling stolen goods, assault, passing forged cheques, couple of drug charges...naughty boy." He sat back and laced his fingers across his stomach. "And you say he was there?"

"Not only that," Finch told him, "I cross-referenced Wright before I came in here. He's been hanging about with that lot for years."

"Right," said McLennan, getting up, beginning to pace the room, lost in thought. "This is all beginning to make sense. Thank God for that," he added, somewhat more subtly. He made an idle circuit of the desk, stared out of the window for a moment and then turned back to Finch, but what he saw there gave him pause.

Finch's expression was profoundly, seriously troubled. He'd shoved his hands into his pockets, hunched his shoulders and was staring at Wright's file as if he were looking for meaning in the Dead Sea Scrolls. McLennan watched him carefully for a while before speaking up.

"Something wrong?" Finch jerked his head up, as if a bubble had just popped in his face.

"Sorry. Probably nothing," he said, ruefully. "I've just got a bad feeling about all this. Like we're being strung along."

"Why?" The inspector clapped a hand to the back of his neck and scratched it, puzzled. "It all seems very straightforward to _me_."

"Maybe _too_ straightforward," said Finch, not a question but a statement, and he ducked his chin as he uttered it. "It was just a feeling. Apologies, sir, didn't mean anything by it. Anyway," he went on, with a visible shake of his head, "there was one other thing. I got the record of the last few calls on Patricia Garnet's mobile."

He passed over another copy, stapled at the corner. McLennan stopped for a moment to wonder what had become of the concept of the paperless office, and quickly concluded that it was yet another symptom of humanity's peculiar yet irrepressible desire to do things the hard way even when a better and cleaner option presented itself. He then blinked, took the printout and glanced down at it while Finch continued to speak.

"There are surprisingly few calls here," he explained, "and only two in the three days leading up to the killings. One incoming, one outgoing. The outgoing call was the last one made on that phone, and guess who that was made to?"

"Do tell," said McLennan, still scanning the text.

"Demirkan," was the answer. McLennan looked up, briefly, but he had nothing but a resigned, lopsided smile on his face as he did so.

"And the incoming?"

"This could be delicate," said Finch, uneasily, indicating the pertinent entry on the log with a short jab of his finger. "It was early the previous afternoon, from a Gordon Deitrich. He's...he _was_ a colleague of hers."

McLennan folded the papers over his hand at that point, his brow crumpling. He looked into Finch's face, searching for a clue there. He struggled heroically for one more second, and then gave up entirely. "Why do I know that name?" he asked.

"He presents kids' programmes, sir," Finch responded, pursing his lips. "He was on Channel 5 a little while ago, if I'm right about that."

"Oh," said McLennan, vaguely. "Yes, I remember," he added. He'd brought the man to mind now; a rather fey, affected fellow who had nevertheless proven very popular with daytime TV watchers of all ages...particularly, for some bizarre reason, college students. McLennan was certain, now, that he'd seen his own young granddaughter watching one of Deitrich's shows at some point or other.

"I see what you mean by delicate," he said, at long last. "But we've got no choice here, we need to have a word with him. Let's go."

He turned to the door, although he halted with his fingers on the handle and swung back round to face Finch, who was still looking deeply introspective. McLennan lowered his voice and chose a few careful words.

"Just out of curiosity," he said, "what exactly is this bad feeling you've got?" Finch finished shrugging his coat on before he replied, giving every indication of a man constructing a mental house of cards in the teeth of a high wind.

"There's not much I can put into words, sir," he said, slowly, "but I get the impression that we're only seeing what someone wants us to see."

McLennan had already opened his mouth to say something in response when he realised that he ought to shut it again. _Are you sure you want to pursue this,_ he asked himself, realising very shortly that the answer was 'no'. He'd been with the Met for over thirty years and, while he admitted that sometimes all a copper had to rely upon was gut instinct, it was also that self-same gut instinct that had got far too many good officers killed.

Even so, he was aware that Finch was a reliable man who didn't deserve a dressing-down for answering a direct question. "I'll bear that in mind," he said, somewhat lamely, and finished opening the door.

* * *

><p>Gordon was staring out of the office window when Anne slipped through the door behind him. She waited for two or three seconds before coughing discreetly, at which point he swung around, dispelled the startled look that had set up camp on his face and cracked a genuine smile.<p>

"I must say," Anne observed, sinking into a chair on the far side of the desk, "that it's been quite some time since I saw you smile, sweetheart. I was afraid I'd have to employ drastic measures if I ever wanted to see your teeth again."

"Such as?"

"Mooning you," said Anne, perfectly deadpan. Gordon struggled for a second to maintain the same severity of expression, failed dramatically, and collapsed against the wall while he battled for breath.

"You _look_ better, too," she went on, seemingly oblivious to Gordon's physical distress. Everything sorted now, is it?" Gordon recovered his composure, blushed very gently, and took his own seat.

"I think so," he said, lacing his fingers behind his head and tilting the chair back a few notches. "And you might be happy to hear that I haven't had a drink in a few days now."

"Might be?" echoed Anne, her eyes widening in mock surprise. "There's no 'might be' about that. I'm very proud of you."

Gordon was just attempting a self-effacing reply when the phone rang. He reached out for it, but Anne's reflexes were finely honed and she plucked the receiver up before the first buzz had died away. Tucking it into her shoulder as she greeted the caller, she frowned almost at once and raised a finger at Gordon as she continued to listen.

"Okay, I'll come and get them. Thanks, love," she said, and hung up. Her hand remained, clasping the receiver for a few moments more, and she then cast a narrow, analytical glance at Gordon.

"There're a couple of policemen downstairs," she said, eventually. "They want to talk to you."

Gordon felt his features solidify. It was a reflexive gesture of self-defence, he understood, given that the only other option was to allow his face to slide into the rat-like, hunted look that was lurking a mere breath below his skin. Nevertheless, he was sure that his waxen expression was just as much of a giveaway, if not more.

When Anne had left the room, he sat in a growing miasma of his own sweat for what felt like a year, and then dragged himself up out of his chair and placed his palms flat on the cold window, leaning forward until his breath fogged the glass and he started to hyperventilate.

_Think of something_, he pleaded with his brain. _Anything other than the truth will do_. _You lie for a living, my friend; surely you can cope with this?_ He stepped back, calmly and slowly, as the door opened behind him, then folded his hands behind his back and turned around as smoothly as possible, ignoring the rabid jackrabbit in his chest.

Anne shepherded two plainclothes police officers into the room and, in the same efficient movement, pulled the door closed to afford them privacy, although – Gordon noted – not without showing him a heated, worried stare as she did so. He found space to sympathise with her for a second, and then turned his attention to his visitors.

The first was an imposing figure, almost as tall as Gordon himself, with a fine, close crop of steel-grey hair. The younger man, lurking behind the other like a human shadow, was altogether more...dishevelled, he decided, dark and morose, with a lugubrious and persistent air of doom about him.

"Gordon Deitrich?" the first officer said, holding out a hand. Gordon edged around the desk to return the gesture, praying fiercely that his palms weren't as sticky as he sensed them to be. "I'm Chief Inspector McLennan, and this," he cocked his head briefly in indication, "is Detective Sergeant Finch. We're sorry to trouble you."

"No, no," Gordon breathed, feeling a minute tremble in the back of his throat. "No trouble. Won't you both sit down? Would you like some tea?" he babbled, reaching for the intercom. McLennan, however, gave a curt shake of his head.

"No, thank you, sir. I don't anticipate taking up too much of your time."

Gordon returned to the relative shield of his seat behind the desk and squeaked his way down into the well-worn leather chair cushions. He waited, fidgeting microscopically, until the detectives had taken a seat, and then clasped his hands together. He readied a few words in his throat, until a small inner voice counselled him to allow the detectives to speak first.

"I'm afraid I've got some bad news to relay first, Mr. Deitrich," McLennan said, soberly. "Patricia Garnet was murdered several days ago. I understand that you were colleagues, and I'd like to offer my condolences."

_React_, Gordon ordered himself, furiously. _Do something. You might try to look shocked, for a start_. He responded to this urgent order with a slack-jawed expression of emotional upheaval although, if he were honest, he loathed the way it made him feel to perform like this. Even so, it appeared to work. McLennan's eyes creased in sympathy before he continued.

"As difficult as this must be for you, Mr. Deitrich," he began, and fiddled with his pen, turning it over in his fingertips, "for the purposes of our investigation, I have to ask you some questions about Ms. Garnet."

It was only now that Gordon felt a tear fill the corner of one eye, and he wiped it away with a delicate fingertip. He realised with a sudden dart of superheated shame that, while this tear was very real, it was mostly born of self-pity and not, as much as he'd have liked, for the death of a woman he'd believed to be a good friend. He drew a shuddering breath and spoke up.

"Please...yes, if there's anything I can do to help..." he said, softly, and then allowed his voice to sink into oblivion.

"Thank you, sir." McLennan turned to Finch, who passed over a sheet of notebook paper and then sat back, hands neatly folded, directing a quiet yet penetrating gaze at Gordon.

"Now," McLennan went on, studying the paper for a second, "we've ascertained that Ms. Garnet received only one incoming call on her mobile phone in the eighteen hours before her death, and this was traced to your phone. I wonder if you can tell me what this call was about?"

Forcing himself not to avert his eyes from the inspector, Gordon decided that he could escape with only a mild variation on the literal truth, and cleared his throat before beginning.

"This is rather embarrassing," he said, not needing to fabricate the flush that sprang to his face at that point, "but we had in fact been making plans for a date. I'd offered to cook dinner at my home, and I was simply confirming the arrangements." Gordon kept his gaze locked with that of the Chief Inspector as he spoke, although a tiny movement out of the very corner of his eye told him that Finch had shifted slightly at this explanation, and was gestating a frown.

"Once again, I'm very sorry for the intrusion, sir, but I must ask – did this date go well?" McLennan inquired, very gently.

"It did. At least, I _thought_ it did," said Gordon, and only now did he allow his head to drop. "But it was getting late in the evening when Tricia said she had a call to make, went out into the hall, came back and then told me she had to leave right away. I'm afraid I didn't hear what the call was about," he added, as an afterthought.

"Thank you, sir," McLennan said, although he wrote in his notebook as he said it, and only glanced back up after he'd dotted several emphatic i's and one full stop. "And then she left your house alone? What time was this?"

"Around eleven-fifteen, I think," said Gordon, mulling it over. "And yes, she left alone. I would have offered her a lift but, as I say...I was given the impression that something had gone wrong during the evening, and at the time I was too put out to suggest it. I wish I had," he said, sorrowfully, and finding that he was completely sincere about this.

McLennan folded the cover of his notebook down and shuffled himself into a more comfortable position in the hard chair.

"I think that's about all for now, Mr. Deitrich," he said, "and thanks for your patience. Unfortunately, I'm going to need to take an official statement from you at some point in the near future, down at Scotland Yard." Here he shuffled some more, and went on. "It wouldn't otherwise be necessary, but it does appear as if you were the last person to see Patricia Garnet alive, and this is a necessary procedure."

"I do understand," said Gordon, as the officers stood, somewhat self-consciously now, and headed for the door. Gordon showed them out, nodding gently, although he swore that as they left he received one last, faint lingering stare from Finch, those deep, murky eyes pinning him in place for a second before the door swung closed again.

Anne had obviously decided to maintain a front of decorum, because it was another few minutes before she slipped back into the office and stood in the middle of the rug, one hand planted on her hip, broadcasting one of the loudest silences that Gordon had ever heard.

He experienced a terrible, compulsive urge to tell her everything that had happened, a drive to confess that was so primitive that he'd almost forgotten its existence. Common sense came to his aid, however, and he closed his mouth as quickly has he'd opened it. Instead, he slumped back down into his seat and prepared himself for a heavily abridged explanation.

* * *

><p>Outside the gates, McLennan paused to locate a packet of Polos. While he did so, he glanced behind him to check that he and Finch were in reasonable isolation, and then spoke softly but clearly.<p>

"Got any feelings about this part, Finch?" he asked, sucking thoughtfully on the mint as he watched Finch offer him one tiny shrug, barely more than a twitch.

"Only that I doubt she went to his house for a date. The bloke's gayer than a Christmas tree, if you ask me."

"That's a very dangerous claim, Sergeant," replied McLennan evenly, without feeling the need to reveal that he'd reached much the same conclusion on his own. "We've got to stick to what we can prove, and my hunch here is that we're not going to be able to prove that she didn't do exactly as he described."

"So what do we do now?" Finch asked, just as much of himself as of his Chief Inspector, as he fished his car keys out of his pocket.

"There's only one thing we can do for the time being," McLennan said, his words parenthesised by a sigh. "We'll put out an arrest warrant for Roger Wright. He's the only lead we've got so far. Meanwhile, we need his address because come hell or high water, I'm searching it. Can you get that for me?"

"I'll try, sir."

McLennan took one last, troubled glance at the Magnavision building as they drove away, trying to dispel the unsettling, gut-twisting feeling that it wasn't the last he'd heard of it.

* * *

><p>Midnight came and went without leaving so much as a cold kiss behind it and, in due time, gave way to even less civilised hours, which lay heaviest of all on one particular pair of shoulders.<p>

Jason was bored to the edge of catatonia. He'd taken the security job at Magnavision in the first place for the main reason – or, if he were honest with himself, the _only_ reason – that he'd thought it would be a good chance for some quiet, undemanding work without a supervisor hanging over his shoulder every five minutes.

Exactly three hours into his first shift, just two weeks previously, he'd reached the definite conclusion that he'd badly overestimated the benefits of lone working, especially when set against the tedium of having to make the same circuit through an empty building every half an hour for ten hours, with nothing but a surly, wall-eyed Dobermann Pinscher for company.

He'd unclipped the dog's lead for the moment. He knew that this was strictly against the rules, but the animal had been getting more and more restless for the past few minutes and Jason no longer felt like having his shoulder dragged half out of its socket as the dog strained, whining softly, at its tether.

Once the dog had been released, however, it seemed a little unsure as to what to do with its newfound freedom. It dashed ahead of Jason, rounded the next bend in the corridor, and then came clicking back, high-stepping like a Lipizzaner stallion. Its thick stump of a tail twitched hesitantly as it backed away once more, turned, and peered round the corner again.

Jason, not normally a sensitive man, nevertheless felt a cold prickle of sweat on the back of his neck. He'd been taking this same dog on his rounds since he'd started the job, and yet he'd never seen it act in this manner before. It wasn't, he decided, that the animal was afraid. What was, somehow, worse was that it appeared to be dreadfully, morbidly fascinated by something that Jason himself could neither see nor hear.

The dog disappeared round the corner once more. Jason knew that taking the left-hand corridor took him away from his allotted route, but he had a shrewd suspicion that it would be far simpler to allow the dog to satisfy its curiosity than to drag it away from whatever it was that had such a fierce grip on its attention.

The Dobermann, when Jason caught up with it, was standing on its hind legs, pawing at the security door that led out into the rear courtyard. This truncated section of passage was lit by nothing more than a single bulb in an aluminium shade, and the dog's eyes stood out as pinpoint sparkles in the relative gloom. Pulling his ID card off his belt, Jason swiped the touchpad that unlocked the door and, pushing his way past the excitable animal, slipped outside into the frost-torn night air.

The door slammed back as the dog barrelled past his legs, almost knocking him over, and hared out into the circles cast by the sodium lamps on the outer walls. He saw it dart through the last patch of subdued illumination before it was lost to sight behind a storage shed.

It occurred to Jason, rather belatedly, that if there was indeed an intruder in the grounds of the studios, he could expect to face a tongue-lashing for allowing the dog off the lead to attack them, especially in a time and place where criminals had developed a habit of pursuing legal action for any injuries they might incur – even when this happened in the middle of a crime.

_Still_, he mused, gloomily, _too late now_. And with this heavily in mind, Jason dragged his heels out over the tarmac courtyard and followed in the dog's wake. He noted as he did so that the animal wasn't barking or snarling; it wasn't making so much as a single solitary sound, in fact. Maybe his luck was in, after all. _Maybe it just heard a cat_, he added, internally.

He rounded the last bend and fetched up behind the storage shed, and it was at this point that he became partially detached from reality. The Dobermann was sitting on its haunches, quite at peace; chin raised and shining eyes fixed on the figure that stood above it, stroking its silky head with slow sweeps of one leather-gloved hand.

Jason, his expression quite dreamlike, saw the black cloak billow lazily in a slight, meandering night breeze. He studied the back of the figure's head, and the way the sodium bulbs cast smooth yellow highlights on its sleek raven hair. He watched the hand pause, and then halt in its ministrations to the dog as the shade straightened its back and stood up, still without turning around. Lastly, Jason fancied that he heard a soft hiss of indrawn breath as the intruder shook its head, slowly and deliberately, and began to turn.

Without warning, Jason's vision was eclipsed in a violent, suffocating swirl of dark cloth. He didn't even see the fist before it struck home.


	11. Diversion

The room had been utterly and comprehensively wrecked.

McLennan stood just inside the door, in one of the few areas that wasn't littered with shattered glass, random splashes of developer and cascades of spilled paperwork, and surveyed the scene with more broken despondency than he'd ever felt in his entire career.

"I was right," he muttered under his breath, shaking his head gently.

"Sorry, sir, what was that?" said Finch, angling through the doorway. McLennan flinched, turned and managed a wry smile.

"Nothing," he said, slightly more loudly than he'd intended to. "Just talking to myself. Have we got any eyewitnesses on this one?"

Finch shuffled around the inspector, craning his neck to take in the full view of the devastated room. Noticing the scene of crime officer still painstakingly bagging shards of glass, he lowered his voice and swung around to close the gap between himself and McLennan.

"Only one," he said. "A security guard. He's only been working here a couple of weeks. He said he went to investigate a disturbance out the back, saw a bloke in a long black cloak, and then he got clobbered. He was out of it for the next hour and a half."

"What about the CCTV?" McLennan asked, his tone now containing just a faint hint of pleading. He watched as the sergeant shook his head apologetically.

"Nothing," said Finch, his shoulders sagging. "The whole system was disabled. The cables were cut. From the looks of the marks on the wall, I'd say it was done with a very sharp knife. We do have one lead," Finch continued, although McLennan watched him back up a step as he did so, "but you're not going to like it. The security station logged the ID card that was used to gain access."

"Let me guess," said McLennan, faintly, his hand plastered to his forehead in an attempt to counter a sudden, nagging ache. "Patricia Garnet's?"

"Yes, sir. This is her department. Someone was in a hurry to find something, all right."

"I wonder if they did?" McLennan asked, softly. He then shook his head, distracted. "Never mind. Has the room been printed?"

Despite their admittedly brief association, McLennan nevertheless fancied that he'd become a fairly accurate judge of Finch's body language, and the attitude he saw taking shape before his eyes was one of turbid unease, accompanied by much in the way of shuffling and fidgeting.

"Yes," said Finch, slowly, "and I made sure to get it pushed through. We found five right-hand prints on the door handle, in some kind of oil. They're Roger Wright's."

"Are you finished in here?" asked Finch, very wearily. McLennan was on the verge of replying when he saw that the question had not been directed at him. The SOCO glanced up, sealing one last zip-lock bag, nodded, and left the room. McLennan turned, gently closed the door behind him, and then faced Finch down with his hands clasped tightly behind his back.

"Okay," he breathed, "let's just say that I'm now curious enough to ask in full. What's your theory about all this?"

For a moment, the question hung in the air between them like the proverbial elephant in the room, and Finch, for one second, reverted to his customary habit of tugging at his earlobe. Once that was done with, he returned the inspector's steady gaze and cleared his throat.

"The train robbery was a lucky guess, if you ask me," Finch began, uncertainly, but McLennan held his tongue and allowed the sergeant to continue. "And I don't think Wright killed anyone. He's a coward; anyone can see that from his record."

"Armed robbery? Assault?" said McLennan, though as gently as he could, more to keep the ball rolling than to cast an immediate damper on Finch's tentative speculation.

"Yes, sir, I know. But he never pulled anything off without heavy backup, and as for the assault...he got eighteen months for beating up a seventeen year old girl. As I say, he's a coward. He got his face carved up while he were in for that, by the way."

Both men paused as a pair of footsteps passed the closed door at that point, and beneath this they caught the tinny crackle of police radios. When the room was quiet once more, McLennan pinched the bridge of his nose, blinked hard, and turned back to Finch.

"If Wright didn't kill his mates, then who did?" he asked. "Where is he now? How did his prints end up in here?"

Finch's mouth was already open to frame a response, when his mobile phone vibrated in his pocket. Restraining a curse, he pulled it out and answered the summons, raising one eyebrow at his superior as he listened carefully.

"Yep...oh, right? Good. Hold on a sec," said Finch, flatly, and then tucked the phone into his shoulder as he pulled his notebook and pen out of his overcoat pocket. "Right, fire away," he continued, and began to write as he listened, his frown deepening. Finally, muttering a curt "thanks," Finch hung up and put both phone and notebook away and then stuffed his hands into his pockets.

"To answer your questions," he said, perfectly placidly, "I have no idea who killed Demirkan's gang, or why. I think Wright is dead, and probably has been for some time. As to how his prints ended up on that door handle..." Finch paused for several seconds, cogitating, but eventually raised his chin once more, "...I don't know. That's where I slip up, to be honest with you, sir."

McLennan turned around, opening the door once more and inserting himself into the gap. As he did so, he leaned back toward Finch and dropped his voice.

"Sergeant," he said, and glanced around into the corridor, just once, to check that they were reasonably alone, "you're a good thinker. I won't deny that. I just wish that thinking was all it took to make it in the force."

With that, he led the way back out into the passage, and they made their way to Finch's waiting car. Several uniformed officers regarded them curiously as they passed, but it wasn't until they were halfway back to the Yard that McLennan, staring quite evenly at the setting sun, remembered something that had eluded him in the mire of Finch's extemporising.

"By the way," he said, casually. "What was that call about?" Finch waited until the car had drawn up at a red light, then reached for his notebook and handed it over without looking.

"We've found Wright's last known address," he added, by way of explanation. "Some place off the Whitechapel Road, I'm told. Do you want to take a look down there now?"

"No point," said McLennan, ruefully, sinking down into the passenger seat and casting a gloomy eye over the passing human traffic. "We'll need to get a search warrant and organise a squad before we go anywhere near the place, and besides, it'll be better to wait until it's dark."

Finch nodded, albeit very reluctantly, and pulled away from the red light.

* * *

><p>The night closed in around Whitechapel, dragging a portmanteau of rain clouds with it, wrapping the streets in a heavy, suffocating embrace that mirrored the gesture of the figure stalking through the deserted back streets far below.<p>

V pulled his cloak around his shoulders and lowered his head a little, ears alert for the sound of voices, footsteps or approaching vehicles but it seemed that even here, in the grimmest corner of a foetid city, the denizens had long since burrowed into their beds. He nevertheless quickened his pace a fraction, turning an inch or two to one side to study the house numbers, until he reached the one he was in search of.

There was no gate here, only two rusted stumps that indicated the ancient death of a pair of cast iron hinges. The heavy brick gateposts were speckled with healthy clumps of moss and overhung by a rapacious privet hedge that had been decorated with drinks cans and empty chocolate wrappers by passers-by.

Gliding up the patchwork pathway on cat's feet, V insinuated himself into the mine-dark shadows of the cobwebbed porch and drew out a pair of lock picks. He folded one into his left hand for reserve, and slipped the other into the keyhole, adjusting the steel until it settled and then, with a supple turn of his wrist, forced the tumblers back. The door protested quietly, but swung inward at the touch of one gentle finger.

He slid through the narrow gap and swung the door closed once more. The hall he found himself in was, if anything, more dolorous than the garden had been, decorated in nothing but bare wood chip paper and a dust-haunted light fitting that had, it seemed, been innocent of a lightbulb for quite some time.

As he approached the door to the upstairs flat, V twirled the lock pick in his fingers, somewhat thoughtfully. He turned over his shoulder as a car purred down the street outside, but even as it dwindled without showing signs of stopping, he shook himself out of his contemplation and attended to the second lock that lay before him.

The flat upstairs represented what must once have been the bedroom suite of a stately Edwardian townhouse, but had been split from the rooms downstairs under the sheer, irresistible pressure of the country's housing shortage. The depredations of poverty had done the rest, and the flat was not so much furnished as under siege to an invading army of half-collapsed shambles.

The hall was just as narrow as the one downstairs, although the overhead light was, at least, fitted with a bulb. The door at the end of the hall gave onto the living room, but the one beside it was already standing ajar. V negotiated the hallway in the velvet darkness and moved into the bedroom.

Closing the door with nothing but the subtlest of creaks, V stepped into the single beam of cloudstruck moonlight that was all the illumination that the room boasted. He crossed the rug and drew back the curtains, allowing muted light to wash across the scene.

By this gothic glow, he turned to a dresser that stood beside the window, sliding out the top drawer and studying the contents, which amounted to nothing more than a chaotic confusion of socks. The second drawer contained more clothing and, secreted to one side, half-hidden, a small cardboard box of bullets.

The third drawer stuck a little on its runners, and V tugged it gently to one side and to the other to free it. When it slid out, he stood back to appraise what he saw, and snorted softly with satisfaction. The drawer was half-filled with plastic bags, most of which were bundled up with tape.

He leaned in closer, smiling oddly beneath the cover of the mask, and reached in to sort through the bags. Long, graceful fingers plucked out one small parcel and held it up to the window for a moment. The fading moonlight filtered its dying rays through the cloudy plastic, oddly distorted, and then V folded the bag and deftly tucked it beneath his belt.

A piercing wail from outside had him swinging around, tensing in response, hand already halfway to the hilt of a knife, but he shook his head and unwound his knotted muscles as he realised that it was nothing but the sound of a pair of sparring tomcats. The high-pitched snarls died away and, in a brief lapse in the mournful breeze, V heard one of the combatants scale a fence, claws scoring the wood.

A fitful rain began to splatter against the window, though holding the threat of a Biblical deluge in reserve. V moved to the window once more, regarding his own reflection in the glass that was fast becoming a complicated delta of twisting rivulets and streams. The sky overhead, stained its usual umber by London's unchecked light pollution, added demonic highlights to the mask's finer structures, and V angled his head to shift these to and fro for a second.

As the rain picked up tempo, he looked away from his stark alter ego in the water-mirrored glass and extracted a paper bag from his tunic, grasping it in one fist until it crackled and staring around the bedroom with an air of deep and abiding concentration.

Pausing, nodding firmly to himself, V opened the wardrobe and dropped the bag onto the floor inside, alongside a pair of shoes that had seen very many better years. He started to close the door once more, but hesitated as his eye lit upon something else, lurking amongst the other detritus, and a snowflake of an idea flickered through his mind. Stooping, he picked it up and secreted it in a pocket, then turned to leave the room.

V halted as his ears pricked at the sound of footsteps on the path outside the house; a sound that would have been inaudible to most. He pulled up short on the threshold of the hallway, heart ticking over, and listened further. After a few seconds, when it was the silence rather than the lack of it that became unnerving, he swung around and headed for the window, reaching and opening it in one economical and fluid movement.

The sudden splash and bounce of rain on the windowsill formed a counter-rhythm to the crack of the door downstairs as it was kicked inward. V did not obey reflex, did not turn back toward the sound; he simply slithered out of the window, kicked up onto the ledge and balanced there for one second, his toes on the peeling wood and his heels on empty air.

The bedroom window overlooked nothing but a twelve foot drop to the naked concrete patio – a leap that he'd have made if he had to, but there was as of yet another option. Grasping the drainpipe that bordered the window, he stepped out onto it and, finding helpful notches in the old, decaying brickwork, climbed up, over the leaking guttering and onto the roof.

The open sky was now launching a steadfast attack on the city below it, and each belting raindrop plinked and struck against V's mask in a pattern that was half symphony and half cacophony. The rain rustled in the folds of his cloak as he stood up, a little unsteady on the water-slicked slates, and moved at a crouch to the top of the roof.

Even as he straddled the apex, he heard sharp voices echoing up out of the window he'd just left, and he huddled into the shadow of the nearest chimney stack to appraise the situation. As he paused for thought in the lee of the bricks, an insidious, icy raindrop located the tiny gap between the wig and the mask, and trickled down the sensitive scar tissue of his right cheek. He drew a small, sharp breath and shied back.

Thus galvanised, he edged around the chimney stack and out across the wide, sloping weir that the tiles had quickly become under the onslaught of the rain. He moved forward with caution at first, not only to keep his balance but also aware that he was now dicing with capture on both sides.

The end of the terrace lay some eight rooftops distant, but as the rainstorm reached its brief peak and began to slacken, V realised that speed now had to take precedence over stealth, as it was all that was masking the sound of his footsteps from anyone who might be listening in the street below. He shoved his soaking wet cloak well back over his shoulders, took one pace forward to test the resistance of the tiles, and then started to run.

The rain raised a fine ghost of mist that curled in V's slipstream as he vaulted the first boundary wall and took a graceful leap onto the next. There was a subtle shift as a tile cracked beneath his foot, but he was already plunging on through the shower, fine strands of hair whipping across the mask, some sticking there. He darted around a TV aerial, but as he did so, one corner of his cloak caught upon it, and even through the downpour, he heard it tear.

His flight brought him at last to the precipitous drop at the last house in the row, and he reached out, grabbing for the chimney to arrest his dangerous momentum, boots sliding through the trickling water and sending up a short tidal wave of spray.

V paused, taking several deep breaths, and looked down over the edge. Though the rain had dwindled, the wind had risen in counterpoint, and the drizzle was being whipped to and fro, covering the street in a shining curtain that lashed and turned like a shoal of fish. Nevertheless, through this fog, V could see that there was no drainpipe to come to his aid this time. He sighed in no more than mild frustration, and then slipped gracefully down the tiles to the rear of the roof, bracing one foot in the gutter before climbing down over it.

He swung out and dropped smartly, smacking down onto the flat roof of an extension, cloak snapping back in the whistling wind in spite of the weight of the water that suffused it. He straightened up, inhaling the fresh, cold scent of the driving rain, and then, in response to some delicate sixth sense, turned around.

His gaze met another, and became locked there. There was a window behind him, open just a few inches, and through this narrow gap a pair of dark, round eyes were studying him furtively. V, disregarding his precarious circumstance for the time being, approached the window, each step crunching softly on the gravel.

A pair of tiny, pale hands grasped the edge of the sash and pushed the window up a little further, and a curious visage was revealed. A small girl peered out, thick brown curls tumbling over her forehead, blinking slightly as the dying rain speckled her face, and her eyes widened even further as he stretched out one hand, folding her questing fingers into his.

"Childhood has no forebodings; but then, it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow," he whispered, and somehow these words, as softly as they were spoken, rose above the whip-crack of the wind and passed quite efficiently across the space between V and his companion.

He felt that small hand squeeze his own, briefly and hesitantly, but just then the wind kicked up a squall, and the rain fluttered into the window. The child yelped, losing her grip on V's fingers and tumbling from her perch on the window-seat with an indignant cry.

The moment of innocence lost, V backed away, shaking his head sorrowfully. He might have lingered, but at that point a light was snapped on in the bedroom, and he heard a voice, raised in concern. Taking three short steps, he leapt from the edge of the roof, landed lightly in the hedge below and swept away into the damp, sullen night, which swallowed him with careless ease.

* * *

><p>The first thing Gordon noticed was the snuffling and chattering of the rats. The passage was too dark to see them, although the hardwired instincts of terror forced his head around anyway. It made no difference; wherever he turned, the soft squeals seemed to be behind him, although whether this was only a trick of the echo he had no way of knowing. He strained his ears, trying to hear the scuttle of feet that would suggest that they were on the move, but there was none.<p>

Gordon took several hesitant steps of his own, noting the way the floor crackled beneath his heels. There was a chthonic glow in the tunnel, but the only thing it highlighted was his own trepidation and unease. He had gathered a sense of space around him, albeit not much and, wherever this place was, it was cloaked in bone-aching cold.

A rustle at the limits of his hearing told him that the rats were decamping, and he froze, although it seemed that they were streaming out and around his feet without making any attempt at contact. Beneath the susurrus of this busy exodus, he heard measured, heavy footsteps approaching, although the tremulous reverberation made it impossible to determine their direction or intent. Occasionally, there was a splash and drip, as if the unseen walker had met with a puddle, but still the steps continued unabated.

Gordon drew a shivering breath and started to turn, but at that point a hand gripped the back of his neck; not cruelly, but with implacable purpose, all the same. Another hand descended upon his shoulder, and both held him firm in his place.

A warm, enticing scent filled his world, shutting out the mouldering rank of the tunnel and even the foul, wet-fur reek of the silent parliament of rats, and from it Gordon knew without a trace of a doubt who was behind him. He inhaled the perfume of fine leather and claret, but this time, something was new. He sniffed again, transfixed once more by that aroma in spite of the paralysing terror that was working its way down his spine, and noticed the faint but unmistakeable undertone of roses in full bloom.

"_Look_," came a deep, sibilant whisper, curving over his shoulder and sliding into his ear. Gordon tried once more to turn his head, but the hand tightened upon his neck until its glove creaked, and he submitted, peering ahead of him into the eddying blackness.

The rats, which had fallen silent before, now shrieked and tumbled, skittering back down the tunnel towards him, driven by a rising vibration which even Gordon could now feel shaking its way up through the soles of his feet.

"_Be still_," came the voice once more, although it was now raised a little, the better to be heard over a growing, whining, thundering screech. The rats piled up against Gordon's feet and began to climb, piercing his clothes and skin with claws like hypodermic needles, tails lashing and twining with one another's, scrambling up his shirt and sleeves and curling around his neck, chattering their teeth into his ears. He tried once more to fight the grip, to raise his hands and brush at the throng, but he seemed to have lost all control over his own systems.

A new sensation joined the tumult now, and Gordon's pupils contracted painfully as a searing, actinic light lanced through the murky air ahead of him, and he found himself staring into the eyes of...a dragon? No, he checked himself. That animal scream resolved itself into the bang and clatter of steel wheels upon steel rails, and he whimpered as he understood that an Underground train was bearing down upon him at full speed.

_Let me go_, he said, although the words didn't make any mark upon his larynx. _We'll die!_ But the hands remained in place, and now he felt the presence lean close, felt a warm body up against his back, and a hiss slithered into his consciousness.

"_Of all base passions, fear is the most accursed_," it said through the howl of imminent death, the voice consummately soothing and soporific even as the light burned its way through his retinas and the train slammed into him...

Gordon awoke, shaking, half-suffocated from this bewildering dream, his lungs straining with the effort of his laboured breathing. He struggled into a sitting position, gradually becoming conscious of several things in short succession. One was that he was shivering like a willow, having thrown and kicked the quilt down around his ankles as he fought against the worst of his fear. The second was that the window was wide open, and that the relentless wind was driving the curtain up against the ceiling and carrying an intermittent spray of rain inside with it. The third was that he had an erection.

He tumbled out of bed, hitting the carpet on all fours in his dreadful, shameful confusion, rising to his knees and holding a hand to the back of his neck, fully expecting to find it bruised from the force of V's grip upon it. His fingers probed, but didn't locate any point of pain, and he grabbed at the edge of the bed to assist him in standing up.

He was still trembling like a palsied horse, but he managed to stumble across to the window and slam it shut, gasping aloud with the strain of this action. The soft voile curtains relaxed, dropping down around his shoulders, and for a fractional moment he flinched at the unfamiliar touch upon his skin. Then, brushing the fabric aside, he staggered back to the bed and collapsed onto it before curling up like a baby, one pillow clasped to his chest, another soaking up the sweat on his cheek and neck.

The clang of the doorbell ripped through his disturbing reverie, and he sat bolt upright once more, still clutching the pillow like a shield. He looked around for his alarm clock, trying to ascertain the time, and then he recalled that he'd left it in the wardrobe, determined not to be roused too early for once.

The remnants of the dream were clinging to Gordon like so many remoras, and though he grabbed his robe and swathed himself in it, this did nothing to ease the chill that settled down inside him like a well-fed parasite as he made his way downstairs to the hall. With each step, he recounted a portion of the dream, each element bouncing back and forth through his skull with the slight reverberation of the treads, and as hard as he tried, he could not dispel the brooding sense of foreshadowing that hung around it all.

As he negotiated the last few stairs, he heard a soft, shifting sound from outside the front door, and then a sharp scratch upon the wood that had him pausing to slow his fluttering pulse a little.

After what felt like aeons, he dragged his feet over the glossy hall floor and arrived at the front door, drawing back the bolts and then halting himself momentarily. Such had been the power and depth of the nightmare that he could still feel those hands upon his skin and those whispered phrases in his ear, and his fingers tightened on the latch until they ached.

_Of all base passions, fear is the most accursed_, his mind reminded him at that point, and before he found a reason to stop himself from doing so, he had snapped the latch back and opened the door.

When he saw who stood upon his doorstep, though. Gordon sagged, clasped his hand to his mouth in deep and unresolved shock and, for the moment, said nothing at all.

* * *

><p>At that moment, in another location far below the wet, shining streets, V lowered the needle of the gramophone, listened patiently to the scratch and crackle of the record, and then attended to his sewing as the siren song of a Mozart violin concerto poured over him.<p>

With some care, he stripped off his gloves and ran pink, overly sensitive fingertips over the corner of his cloak, searching for the damaged area. Locating the tear, he ran the needle and thread through the ragged edge, noting with satisfaction that it was only a seam that had given out.

For some minutes, he worked in a bubble of silence, wreathed in nothing but the soft whisper of his own breath and the dulcet tones of the ancient recording and, through it all, the steady scratch of the silk thread through the coarse black cloth.

After a time, V murmured inaudibly to himself and snapped the trailing thread. Holding the corner up to the table lamp, he studied the repair, applying critical scrutiny, looking for the slightest peep of light through the warp or the weft. Satisfied, at last, with his endeavours, he folded the cloak between his hands and stood up.

As he did so, a small weight in his pocket brought with it the remembrance of what he'd retrieved from the viper's nest in Whitechapel. Reaching down, he extracted the compact black radio receiver and turned it back and forth under his gaze.

Presently, he crossed the gallery and lifted the needle from the record.


	12. Reunion

McLennan's attention was divided between the glistening rain on the windowsill, and the object in the evidence bag that dangled between his finger and thumb.

He took a cursory glance around the ugly, depressing, spartan room, saw no chair, and elected to sink down onto the bed itself. The ancient mattress sagged and bowed, and the slats beneath it complained, but the whole took his weight, and he drew a careful breath as he eyed the contents of the bag.

The mask had been folded out of necessity, in order to fit it inside. This drew sharp, disconcerting ridges and furrows in an otherwise handsome visage, all laughter lines, neat black beard and seductive smile. McLennan turned his head to one side as he studied it; something about that cut-out, eyeless gaze was curiously difficult to meet.

He gave in, and turned his stare back to the open window, and to the dying rain that was still speckling and prickling the peeling wooden sill. Something in his brain, as tired and overworked as it was, felt as if it were in dire need of a click at the sight of this but, for the moment, that epiphany eluded him. He simply sat, one hand wrapped around the mask in its sterile bag, and watched the dull play of light on the small puddles of water.

The bedroom door inched back, and a young WPC inserted herself through the gap. McLennan struggled to remember her name, but he was battling against the fact of too many hours without carbohydrates and coffee and too many nights without unbroken sleep, and eventually conceded. He settled for a taciturn nod of recognition, and hoped that it would suffice.

"Are you all right, sir?" she asked, cocking her head to one side, quizzical, like a small bird. "You look a bit..."

"I'm fine," McLennan interrupted, as gently as he could muster. "What is it?"

"Detective Sergeant Finch is here, sir," said the constable, after a pause to reorient herself. "He's just arrived. Shall I send him up?"

McLennan grunted heavily, heaved himself up from the bed and brushed the creases from his overcoat, somewhat irritably. He was horribly aware, from the apprehensive expression on the constable's face, that right now he probably resembled less a calm, incisive police detective than he did a surly, cave-dwelling troll on the attack, but there was little to be done about that. He simply forced a smile of sorts, and shook his head.

"No, no need," he said, and then cleared his throat noisily to shift the tepid coat of dust that appeared to have lined it while he'd been in the room. "I'll come down in a minute. Thank you," he added, after a pause. The constable nodded, and backed out of the room, relief suffusing her movements.

Alone once more, McLennan turned back to the window, and this time took several slow steps towards it. Shielding his eyes against the drizzle, he leaned out a little and scrutinised the drop to the patio beneath. He paused, the rain shining on his hair and the back of his neck, and tried once more to force through the impending mental connection that he could feel, scuttling like an irritable ant at the back of his brain.

It wouldn't cooperate. He snorted in frustration, and pulled his head back into the room, remembering to duck along the way, not wanting to add the risk of concussion to his already towering problems.

Remembering the mask in his right hand, he lifted it once more and studied that empty gaze. There was something mockingly familiar about it, but he was halfway down the stairs before he took a moment to stand still and analyse that teasing flicker of recognition.

His thoughts, though not particularly fluid, were dammed completely by the sound of the front door opening. The feeble glow from the streetlights flooded the hall, and an amorphous shadow entered, followed closely by its owner: Finch. The sergeant ran one hand halfway up the banister, regarded his superior with eyes that looked, even in the half-light, to be as pink as a rabbit's, and coughed very gently.

"Anything interesting, sir?" he said, and then shot a brief glance over his shoulder to check that they weren't overhead. McLennan sighed, descended the last half dozen steps, and handed the evidence bag to Finch, who took it as if it might explode.

"It looks like we've found our masked train robber, anyway," said McLennan, by way of explanation. He stopped, waiting for a reaction, but nothing flowed back into his ears besides a heady silence, as Finch continued to scrutinise the mask through the plastic, his eyes wandering to and fro like foraging beetles.

"Anything else?" asked Finch, still without tearing his gaze from the bag.

"Plenty, since you mention it," said McLennan, folding his arms. "Some heavy weaponry; a Browning nine millimetre, Desert Eagle, Uzi SMG and a Walther P99, all plus ammo. Serious drugs, as well. There's enough coke up there to bankrupt the whole of Colombia, several kilos each of hash and heroin and a tidy little stash of LSD."

This, the inspector observed with some dark, exhausted amusement, seemed to get a reaction at last.

"Bloody 'ell," breathed Finch, his accent slipping several notches further back into an angular Lancastrian twang in the midst of his shock. He dropped his hand, the mask forgotten for the moment. "Any sign that anyone's been here lately?"

"Well, the place is a tip, there's dust everywhere and I saw at least one coffee cup with a rainforest in it," said McLennan, thoughtfully, "but that's no indicator. I went to university. I know what blokes can be like when they live alone," he finished, snorting gently as he did so, and not quite believing that he could possibly be tired enough, and under enough strain, to be making contemptibly weak jokes in a time and a place like this.

If Finch found anything about his inspector's manner inappropriate, he didn't register it nor allow any fragment of change to cross his features. He simply craned his gaze up into the gloom at the top of the stairs, and rubbed at his chin for a second.

"Everything still up there?" he asked, still staring the darkness down. McLennan nodded firmly.

"I had the lads leave it all in place until you got here. I thought you'd want to have a poke round while everything was still as is." McLennan wound down, suffered a tentative afterthought, and added: "I've probably missed one or two obvious clues, so I could use the help."

In an instant, he wasn't at all sure why he'd said that. It was certainly tantamount to admitting to some serious flaws in his capacity as a police officer, and not something that, under any other circumstance, he'd have even contemplated saying to any other copper, let alone one he'd only known for a few weeks. He backed up one mental step, and wondered why on earth he'd trusted this confession of humanity to, in particular, Eric Finch.

He stared across the small space between himself and the younger man, and found no hint there. Finch turned, almost as if he'd felt McLennan's eyes on the back of his neck, and frowned softly.

"Everything all right, sir?" he asked, one foot already upon the bottom stair. McLennan shook off the clinging fronds of uncertainty, slipped both hands into his pockets, and nodded.

"Everything's fine, sergeant," he said, trying to work enough reassurance into his tenor for the both of them. "Let's get upstairs and see what you make of it, yes?"

As they mounted the threadbare stairs, McLennan heard the bustle of activity outside the front door growing fainter behind them, the fizz of police radios and murmur of voices falling prey to an insectile, velvet silence that appeared to be leaching out of the darkness itself. He took one last glance back down at the light of what passed for civilisation and then, folding his coat around himself to hold back a chill, continued to climb.

* * *

><p>Gordon sat back in the armchair and rubbed at his eyes. It was approaching dawn, and he knew for a fact that he'd be paying for his sleeplessness at some point in the afternoon, but in the meantime he was subsisting on stewed black tea and chocolate biscuits.<p>

He and Edward were seated opposite one another, but they were both watching Nelson, who was trotting to and fro, circling the coffee table, crinkled damp nose pressed industriously to the rug. There was a contagious restlessness to the dog's manner and, though it could have passed without saying, Edward nevertheless spoke up.

"He can smell V around here," he observed, quietly, as the dog brushed past his ankles once more, still snuffling. Gordon nodded soberly and went back to gazing at the surface of his tea as if he were scrying. After what felt like an hour, he raised his eyes from the limpid glaze on the liquid and coughed gently.

"Dad?"

"What's that?" asked Edward, somewhat distantly, his eyes still tracking Nelson's ceaseless path around the living room.

"I was wondering what made you drive all this way in the dark," said Gordon. At this, Edward snapped his head up, but to give him his due for self-control, he paused for as long as it took to click his fingers at the agitated dog.

Nelson glanced around, one corner of his lip lifted, but he eventually acquiesced and, sighing mournfully, slumped down at his master's feet. He continued to flick his eyebrows around the room, however, and his muzzle would periodically twitch and wrinkle as he inhaled the drifting scents on the air. Edward patted the animal's smooth head vaguely, and then fixed his son with a beady glare.

"I was worried about you," he said, sharply. "Don't you think I had a right to be, after what's gone on?" Gordon sighed lightly, set his cup aside, and sat forward.

"I get the impression that there's a bit more to it than that," he said, softly. He saw his father's eyebrows dip, but pressed on. "Why not call? Why all this way in the middle of the night?"

"I had a dream," replied Edward, his eyes unfocused, and Gordon experienced a sudden muscular spasm at these words. He dredged up several vignettes of his earlier nightmare, although not quite of his own free will and not without a tainted, acidic burning deep in his guts as he recalled his unconscious and curiously masochistic reaction to it.

"It wasn't about...rats, was it?" he asked, tentatively, and watched his father's brow furrow at this peculiar question.

"No, no," Edward said, bewildered. "What makes you ask that?"

"I..." Gordon began, then shifted uncomfortably, toyed with the sleeve of his robe, and decided that he had no way forward from this point unless he wanted to raise doubts about his sanity as well as introducing some very difficult topics. He surrendered. "It's nothing," he continued, exhaling. "Doesn't matter. What were you dreaming about?"

"I was dreaming about your mum."

"Oh, Dad," Gordon started to say, but he was restrained, by both Edward's raised hand and by the comprehension that he had no idea how to finish the sentence.

"It's all right," muttered Edward. "It was about the time you got beaten up by Joe Etheridge's boy. D'you remember?"

Gordon was unlikely to have forgotten; that was the day he'd lost his first baby tooth. The Etheridges lived on the far side of the valley from the Deitrich farmstead, and Gordon had been playing in the quarry one summer Sunday with their youngest son, David, who was two years older and, more significantly, just that bit taller and heavier.

In truth, and though Gordon had been too shell-shocked to correct the implied version of events at that point in time, it hadn't been anything as drastic as the "beating up" that his distraught mother had assumed. The two boys had gleefully scaled the sycamore on the far side of the quarry and then, in the way of boys, become embroiled in a heated debate over who had made it to the top first.

This had naturally descended into a half-hearted shoving match, but Gordon, replacing strength with enthusiasm, had lost his grip on his own branch and tumbled from the tree. David, after a perfunctory check to see whether or not his playmate was dead, had run for home. Gordon, meanwhile, had limped back to the farm, palms and knees grazed and full of black grit, eyes and nose streaming, bloodied tooth in his shirt pocket.

When Edward had returned from the farmer's market, he'd discovered Yvonne in floods of hot, silent and indignant tears, plucking gravel from Gordon's skin with a pair of tweezers and mopping up the blood with damp cotton wool as she went.

Later that afternoon, when Gordon had been sent to bed to rest and recuperate, he'd heard his mother's distant, raised voice, demanding that Edward have a word with Joe Etheridge about the vicious behaviour of his son.

Gordon dragged himself out of this broth of remembrance and, in some fractured moment of physical memory, probed his tongue at the spot where that long-ago milk tooth had been knocked out by a limb of the tree on his way down to the ground.

"I remember," he said, feeling that this was somewhat lame in the light of that vivid, fast-forward memory flash. Edward hesitated, his eye suggesting that he was taking some time and care in composing his next statement. In the ringing silence, Nelson lumbered over to Gordon and sprang up onto the sofa beside him, grunting softly with the effort of it all.

"That was the first time your mum ever cried over you," said Edward, haltingly. Gordon blinked twice, and shifted to allow the dog to lay his head in his lap.

"Is there something you're trying to tell me?" he asked, rubbing a soft black ear.

"There's a point," replied Edward, still picking his way through his words as if they were eggshells. "I'm getting to the point. What I'm saying is that you were hardly any trouble to us when you were a lad, which is why that stuck in my mind. Weren't many other times when you gave us grief like that.

"I suppose..." said Edward, lowering his head until he seemed to be addressing his own lap, "...I'd thought that we got lucky. Your mum wasn't supposed to be able to have kids, you know."

"I know, Dad," said Gordon, slightly plaintively, but he otherwise waited in silence for his father to reveal the meaning behind the words with which he was spilling over.

"It shook me, dreaming about that after all this time," said Edward, at length. "I took it as some kind of sign that you were in trouble. And you were, weren't you?" he finished, studying his son with such intensity that Gordon felt as if he were under an electron microscope.

"I still am," Gordon told him, though he waved a languid, helpless hand in the air, contriving to indicate by this that there seemed to be little that anyone could now do about it. "I still don't know exactly what I've...what we've got ourselves into here, and that's a fact. I didn't _ask_ V to steal for me," he added, mournfully.

"I never said you did," Edward sighed, and he now dragged himself out of his seat, beginning to pace the room with slow, calculated steps. "But he's impetuous. Of course he is; he's just a boy."

Gordon's hand, which had been smoothing Nelson's head while the dog mumbled contentedly, stopped dead in mid-stroke as these last few words filtered down to his hindbrain. He turned them over, tried a few alternative meanings, found that none fitted to his satisfaction, and gave up in bewilderment. After this very brief struggle, he angled his head up, very slowly.

"He's what?" he asked, soaked in confusion. Edward paused, then brought himself up short in front of the sofa and ran a hand through his hair.

"You hadn't noticed?" he said, though rhetorically. "Maybe he's different now. He was changing when he left me, I know that. But he's only a kid, all the same. Twenty, maybe twenty-one. No more'n that."

"That's _all_?" asked Gordon, rigid with incredulity.

"I'd say so, yes."

"That's not possible. He's...what I mean is..." Gordon stuttered, ground to a halt, and then sank back into the sofa as he tried to absorb this development. _What am I trying to say_, he thought.

He realised, very quickly, that he was attempting to communicate this: that in spite of his confusion, whenever V was present he'd studied him as a man might study a cobra, appreciating both the imminent threat and the breathtaking fluidity of the animal. That he'd watched V move, and had never seen so much as one hint of extraneous motion or awkwardness; he moved like a twist of smoke in a summer breeze. That in every word, gesture, turn and expression, V carried himself with impeccable composure, and wore the indisputable air of a man much older and wiser than Gordon himself.

_Do you want to tell your own father that you find this man hauntingly beautiful,_ he asked himself, and knew that the answer was no. Some things did not need to be brought up in such close quarters and under such fraught circumstances. He coughed, and turned his gaze downward.

"What's the matter?" said Edward, softly. He sat down on the far end of the sofa, and for several seconds the three formed a curious, frozen tableau: father and son with the dog between them, none of them regarding the others, all apparently rendered breathless in a moment of heightened sensitivity. It was Nelson who first broke the silence with a muffled sigh, but it was Gordon who followed this with words.

"I can't get him out of my mind," he said, simply, and then let his voice rest, knowing that Edward would either understand everything from this brief statement, or he wouldn't. It was the only way that Gordon could possibly convey the twisted and unutterably complicated truth of the matter.

"I know what you mean," Edward replied, knotting his fingers around one another and staring at them. "He's compelling, isn't he?"

This turn of phrase startled Gordon into looking up again. Though he was a fine father and a decent, intelligent man, Gordon had never known Edward to be overly articulate, and for him to describe something or someone as 'compelling' was so unusual as to be immediately noticeable.

"That's as good a word as any," Gordon agreed, "but I can't be a part of this any more. I simply can't. It's too dangerous. That's why I asked him to stay away."

"You think you're the only one who's got problems?" asked Edward, still staring at some random point in space.

"I didn't say that," Gordon muttered. "I know what he put you through."

"I wasn't talking about myself, lad," said Edward, and he now turned to look Gordon straight in the eye. "You've no idea what's going to become of this country, do you?"

"Well..." Gordon began, and then paused to regroup, "I know that things are a little strained right now, of course, but with all the attacks we've been subjected to, it's only to be expected..."

"You didn't listen, did you?" said Edward, standing up abruptly and starting to pace the room once more, one hand clamped to his forehead as if he were in vague pain. "Neither did I, once upon a time. No, you be quiet and this time _listen_ to me, lad," he commanded, as Gordon opened his mouth to form some objection or interruption.

"I grew up without a dad. A lot of my generation did, o' course. Your granddad got shot and died on a beach in France for reasons that didn't mean anything t'me at the time, nor for a long time after that. All I knew was what it meant for _me_. We never had no money, and I had to look out for myself because your gran was always out working to keep me and my brother. All I could do was to hate my dad for not being there for us. I didn't care why.

"As I got older, I started to understand," said Edward, his voice dropping and dwindling now, until it became a parched whisper that Gordon struggled to hear. "I heard the stories, I saw the pictures...Auschwitz, Dachau and the others. I can't say it made it any easier not having a dad, but after a time it did help me put things in order in my mind."

Gordon found that he could no longer look at his father. He blinked several times to battle a sudden, curious sting in his eyes, and then glanced down at Nelson, who had since fallen into an easy, dreamless sleep, his chin rested lovingly on Gordon's thigh. Gordon stopped, found a moment to envy the dog his untouched serenity, and continued to listen as Edward went on speaking.

"People forget this kind of thing so easily, you know," said Edward, apparently addressing the ceiling, one hand rubbing distractedly at his own elbow. "I did, too. When something doesn't seem that relevant to you, you eventually put it away. I'd a farm to run, and after a while I'd a wife and baby to think about too. I stopped thinking about other things."

"Dad," said Gordon, his voice infinitesimally cracked and his eyes now feeling as if they were lined with sand, "You don't have to apologise for that. You had your priorities and, from where I'm sitting, you got things right."

"No, I didn't," Edward retorted. "Yes, you were my first priority, and that was fair enough. But I forgot the way the world works. When everyone's only out for themselves and their own comfort, that's when evil gets a foothold. I should have been fighting back. I should've said something, anything. How'd things get so out of hand that our government were able to set up a concentration camp _on my bloody doorstep?_"

Gordon shied back at these last few words, delivered as they were not in a shout or a scream, which would have been shocking enough, but in a jagged, serpentine hiss that contrived to be far worse. Nelson, too, jerked his head up and regarded his master through wide, dark eyes that were ringed with white. Gordon, with his hand resting light on Nelson's ribcage, felt rather than heard the soft whimper in the dog's chest.

"I'm sorry," he said, stunning himself with the composure in his own voice. "It's just that some people have more reason to be afraid than others. You think I haven't seen what's coming? I _have_, Dad. I've seen it better than most people, and I'm dreadfully afraid. I...there's something you should know about me. This might not be the best time, but then again maybe it is. I don't really know up from down any more, to be frank."

Edward turned, walked back to his son and sat down on the arm of the sofa. Reaching out, he laid one rough hand on Gordon's shoulder and squeezed.

"What's that?" he said, with profound gentility.

"I'm gay," said Gordon, using a desperate exhalation to form those two difficult words.

"I know."

"I didn't want to lay a burden on you, and I didn't want to be a disappointment, but..."

"I said, I _know_," Edward repeated, kindly, and his hand moved, ruffling Gordon's hair in a way that he hadn't done for more than twenty years. "I've known for a long time. I believe I knew before _you_ did, and that's the truth of it."

"You did?" said Gordon, faintly. "How?"

"I'm not sure about the 'how' of it, lad," Edward told him. "I just did. Don't ask yourself why I didn't say anything. Would you've wanted me to, at the time? You had t'work it out all on your own. Didn't matter one whit to me as long as _you_ were happy with your life. But listen to me, now..." he went on, and waited until Gordon raised his head, questioning, "...if you do know where things are headed, then you'll know that nobody's going to be safe, not in the end.

"I did a lot of thinking after V walked out of my door," he said, looking away for a second. "Digging graves gives you a lot of thinking time, it does. I tried to remember what'd gone through my mind when I found him in the river. That took quite some while, 'cause I was still shaken up. But in the end I knew that I'd thought of you, and I saw V there in the water and I thought to myself, that's someone's son too. It might've been a small thing, but it changed me on the spot. After that, I _couldn't _turn my back."

Unable to contain himself any further, Gordon felt a warm, acrid tear tumble from the corner of his eye. He swiped at it, hoping against hope that his father hadn't noticed, but he felt Edward's hand pat gently at the back of his neck, and understood that for the time being, he was as transparent as glass with no way of concealing any of his inner workings from anyone at all.

"I'm sorry, Dad, I didn't mean to..." Gordon began, but Edward waved him into silence.

"Don't matter," he responded. "You're tired, it's been a long hard night for both of us. I know you didn't sleep last night because I didn't either, but I'm the one who's used to that. You get on up to bed, and no arguments from you, either. I'll wake you up for some tea later. Okay?"

Gordon hesitated, but knew that it would be of no benefit to himself were he to refuse the suggestion. Lifting Nelson's forepaws from his lap, he stood up, wavered a little unsteadily, and then trudged out of the living room door.

Edward waited, still sat upon the arm of the sofa, and looked for quite some time into the eyes of his attentive dog. He heard Gordon's footsteps mounting the stairs as if he were marking each one very carefully. He heard the soft squeak of the landing, and then the click of the door to the master bedroom. Finally, Edward counted to ten, _sotto voce_, to be sure that his son wouldn't return.

Only then did he pull a letter from his pocket and unfold it, studying the light, flowing script at very close quarters, a frown developing and drawing in as he did so.


	13. Sepulchres

Edward parked half a mile from the Walker Hotel, not only because doing so was practically a matter of inevitability in London, but also because he felt that he'd be a little more secure if he approached the place on his own terms and his own feet.

He opened the rear door, and Nelson sprang out onto the still unfamiliar paving slabs, displaying reserved interest in them, having been raised from birth on nothing but the soft, boundless Wiltshire grassland. The growl of the streaming traffic also troubled the dog, and he responded to this by hunching down against the side of the Land Rover.

Edward reached down, smoothed the animal's flank with one warm, practised hand and clipped on the lead. For one moment, it seemed as if nothing short of force would persuade Nelson from the safety of his shelter, but he eventually acceded to the gentle tug of the lead and traipsed out, keeping as close to Edward's heel as was possible.

As he walked, Edward fumbled in his pocket for the set of keys he'd taken, very quietly and gently, from Gordon's kitchen drawer. Subterfuge wasn't one of his overriding characteristics, never had been and probably never would be, but he realised that if he'd suggested this plan of action to his son, he'd have been met with a hasty and emphatic refusal.

The hotel loomed over him as he turned the corner and stalked down the alley beside it, making for the service entrance. The ant-farm busyness of the city faded with each step, so much so that it almost seemed artificially muffled, as if someone had dropped a thick, dark cloak over the entire world. The only sounds that now penetrated the musky silence in the alley were the occasional clap and whistle of feral pigeons taking flight from the upper storeys.

Hefting the keys in his palm, Edward paused, and craned his neck to stare back up the alley at the bright, damp thoroughfare he'd just left. Nelson, sensing the hesitation in the air, sat back on his haunches and snorted faintly. Edward glanced down; his sense of indecision fractured along some subconscious fault seam, and then he slipped the key into the lock and twisted it.

The door opened not with the prehistoric screech of doom that Edward had been expecting, but rather with a discreet click of the latch and yawn of the hinges, as if the whole had been subjected to a very recent and very conscientious oiling. He pulled it closed behind them with the same quiet hiss, and gently flipped the latch to be sure that it was locked once more.

Only now did he unclip Nelson's lead. This was a matter of prudence, at any rate, as the dog was by now up on his hind legs, pawing at the empty air and threatening to choke himself with his own collar or, failing that, with sheer frustration. Maddened by newfound freedom, he sprinted to the end of the dust-haunted passage and disappeared into the kitchens before Edward could do so much as press the light-switch and study his surroundings.

The neon tubes flashed, paused and pulsed into life just as Edward heard the fading skitter of claws in the next room and, after this, he was left quite alone in both sight and sound. Cursing vaguely beneath his breath, he followed the dog into the echoing kitchen.

The room was much larger than he'd been prepared for, although it was also – he double-checked this – much cleaner, too, being all but spotless. Chrome handles and steel worktops glinted in the warm light from the doorway as he negotiated the maze of shelving and reached the door to the cellars.

As he did so, he pulled up and stood, framed by the narrow doorway, gazing down the cold stone steps into wonderland. Someone had strung ropes of fairy lights along the walls to act as a guide. They were charmingly haphazard; here was a string of plastic flowers, there a multicoloured riot which would not have looked out of place on a Christmas tree.

Further down the steps there were hung what looked like illuminated clownfish, and finally...Edward had to suppress a spasm of laughter at the apposite metaphor as he realised that the last strand of novelty lights were plump and pleasant white rabbits. Touched by this in spite of his uncertainty and troubled conscience, Edward, like Alice, followed the rabbits down and down.

Emerging at last into the coal cellar, he stopped for a second and held his breath as he heard the soft whisper of song creeping out, up the stairs to the wine cellar and into his ears. He strained to identify it, but the words were in some foreign language and the melody was wholly unfamiliar, although unmistakeably operatic in the best traditions of high coloratura.

The door to the stairs was standing ajar, and now that Edward's eyes were adjusting at last, he noticed that it was spilling a gentle, subdued pillar of goldenrod light out into the gloom. He stalked towards this, and reached out for the handle, which proved to be ethereally cool beneath a palm which was, he suddenly realised, glazed with sweat.

Pulling the door back, he shifted through the gap and sidled down another flight of bare flagstone steps, these even narrower and more vertiginous than the last. The light swelled as he edged down into the heart of the wine cellar, however, as did the music, until Edward could detect every nuance and echo of the singer's voice.

Ignoring this for the time being, he swung his gaze around the open space before him, studying the paintings, the thick dark rugs and curtains, the crystal-bedewed lamps and, lastly, the piano, upon which had been set an expressively ornate candelabra and a glass of red wine, which was blended with scintillating ruby highlights. The aria, he could now see, was issuing forth from the bronze horn of a gramophone in a far alcove.

The three swaying flames of the candelabra pricked at Edward's eyes until he focused intently on them, and it was only now that a soft scrape of claws on flags entered his ears, and he started back as Nelson padded around from behind the piano, ears held back at angles and panting gently and rhythmically. The dog ambled forward, shook his head a little, and then sat down and raised his chin. Just one half second too late, Edward realised that those glossy black eyes were fixed upon something _behind_ him.

Two things meshed in one single scrap of time. Edward saw a flash of movement in the dog's pupils, and felt the slightest shift in air pressure upon the back of his neck. He drew one fraction of the breath he needed to swing around, but got no further than that before a freezing blade edged up against his throat and a voice, all carefully modulated glissando, filtered through to him.

"He's mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf," said V, with just the faintest, finely- whetted edge of humour about his tone.

Edward had been preparing panic in the depths of his instincts, but to his own amazement, a bubble of anger eructated to the surface of this swamp, followed by another, then hard on its heel, a glistening rush of fury. His hand moved of its own accord, snaked up and grasped the pommel of the knife, twisting it out of V's hand to the accompaniment of a soft grunt of surprise from behind him.

He spun around, turned the knife in his hand and levelled it point-first at V, who spread his arms in surrender and took one step backward. Edward watched, detached, as the tip of the blade trembled just a fraction, and then he lowered his arm, although he did not slacken his grip.

"I found you half dead in a ditch," he said, ice sparkling upon each syllable. "I carried you back to my home. I patched you up. I protected you from those soldiers. You really think you can frighten me _now?_" And with this, he tossed the knife across the no man's land between them. V caught it delicately by the hilt and slipped it back into its sheath at his belt.

"You know what," Edward added, eventually, forcing himself to meet those hollow eyes, "I think I liked you better before you put that bloody mask on."

V tilted his chin infinitesimally. "You are the first to tell me so, Edward," he replied, coolly, "but be assured that you will not be the last."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth," said V, curling one hand in the air for the most subtle emphasis. "I came not to send peace, but a sword."

Nelson passed between the two at that moment, tail swinging, seemingly oblivious to the spider's web of tension in the air. He nuzzled V's glove, and then sat down beside him.

Edward made himself pause, studied the tableau before him, and then carefully retracted his next words before they could reach his lips. The first night that he'd taken V into his home, he'd formed an embryonic suspicion about the man. That suspicion, he could feel, was finally beginning to bloom.

He realised, with brutal and unexpected clarity, that he was dealing with a lunatic. Whether he'd always been that way or had been warped into submission by the half understood evils perpetrated upon him at the detention centre was not remotely relevant. The fact that V was incisive, intelligent, sophisticated and erudite was of no concern beside the fact that something, somewhere in the recesses of his brain, had snapped a spring and was now freewheeling.

Edward finally finished composing a new sentence in his head, and coughed gently.

"Why am I here?" he asked, and pulled the letter from his pocket to stress the point. "You said you needed my help. With what?" He threw the envelope down onto the piano without looking at it, and then folded his arms, waiting. He watched the mask turn away, only briefly, and then heard a tiny sigh.

"Have you ever caught the scent of unadulterated fear, Edward?" said V, taking several measured paces as he spoke, circling the piano with Nelson trotting at his heels. "It's the basest odour you can imagine and, what's more, it's contagious. Fear spreads like influenza and, just the same, can take a heavy toll upon whole civilisation. Fear is a lethal disease, and I'm afraid that Gordon has fallen victim to it. He will need you."

This seemed to be the whole of V's message. Edward watched him carefully as he picked up the wine glass and raised it in a peculiar and cryptic toast.

"Can I tell you a little story, lad?" said Edward, approaching the piano and facing V across the candle flames, which were creating soft sparkles deep inside the eye sockets. Presently, V nodded curtly, and Edward hesitated before he began to speak.

"I was there when Gordon was born. It wasn't very common in those days, and the nurses tried to tell me I shouldn't, but I was having none o'that. I stayed. And when he arrived, I made a promise. Didn't know it at the time, but I did. I promised that I'd always protect him.

"Always means what it says, lad," Edward reiterated, resting his fingertips on the lacquered wood before him. "That promise didn't wear off just because my boy grew up. The only problem I've found lately is that when you have a kid, and you swear to defend 'em, you can't predict every kind of trouble they might end up in. Sometimes, it's hard to know exactly how to help."

As if taking upon itself to punctuate the moment, an Underground train pounded past the cellar at that point. The wood beneath Edward's fingers thrummed softly, and the wine in the glass rippled and jolted for a second or two. He stared at it until it stilled once more, then continued.

"I'll protect him from you if I have to," he said, firmly. "Is that the way it _has_ to be?"

"Do you remember what I said to you before I left your home, Edward?" asked V, and he tilted his chin in an exaggerated gesture of curiosity that was almost catlike. "I told you that there was a storm coming. Metaphor can be troubling at the best of times, but even so, I feel I may not have been clear enough. If so, let me speak plainly.

"This country is on the edge of the abyss, and there is nothing that I can do to stop its fall. There are times when events have their own momentum, and nothing will do but for mankind to learn its lessons the hard way. This has happened before. It will happen again. Won't you please sit down?" he added, indicating the sofa.

Edward considered declining, but he was well aware that he would hear what he was going to hear no matter what and, in that instance, he might as well be seated. When he was settled on the sofa, with Nelson stretched out on the rug before him, V moved into the light once more and went on.

"I have much to do before the balance will be restored," he said, and his voice, although gentle, was also declamatory. "I have no expectations of you or your family, and never had. There are many years of difficulty ahead of us all, and I have neither the inclination nor the ability to make predictions as to any of it."

Edward nodded grimly, and then felt the dog shift against his foot, and snort in the midst of a doze.

"What are you doing about the trouble you're in at the moment, though?" he said. "You do know that a couple of detectives have been asking Gordon about those people you killed?"

"I know," said V, starting to pace once more, hands clasped – somewhat nervously, Edward thought – behind his back. "Matters are all but resolved, believe me. I am leading the police astray."

"Yes, you're good at that," said Edward, quietly and bitterly, although he bit into his tongue as V halted mid-step and swung around, cocking his head sharply. "Never mind," Edward said, hastily. "How sure are you that you can keep them occupied?"

"One thing that I have found in recent weeks," said V, his words flavoured with good humour, "is that the Metropolitan Police operate with all due regard for the principle of Occam's Razor: for them, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. I have every confidence that they would much rather address the whole matter as a gangland feud than involve an over-complicated subplot concerning a man without a motive for murder."

Edward grimaced, and then stood up abruptly. This placed him in sudden an unexpected proximity to V, who appeared to stand his ground. Edward experienced only the mildest pause, but he shook it off without difficulty and gripped V by the shoulder, applying a light but communicative pressure.

"Thank you," he said, meaning it. "I know you didn't mean for any of this to happen, but you've got to understand that you _don't_ come between me and my son. I don't care how many knives you've got and I don't care how strong you are, if he's hurt because of you, I'll see you in hell."

These words rang in the vaulted arches of the gallery like a bell or, more appropriately, like the echoing crash of a dropped glass. For the space of several heartbeats, Edward sought the desire to regret them, or at least regret having spoken them aloud, but couldn't see the capacity within himself. Shrugging, he stared across the few inches of space between his face and that death's head mask, and refused to blink.

At length, V dipped his gaze and stepped back, breaking the physical contact between them. Edward pulled his hand back and gripped it in the other, almost as if he'd been burned; his palm was tingling gently, although it might have been his overwrought imagination. Nevertheless, he cast a sidelong look as V smiled warmly. _Gordon was right,_ he said to himself. _You can see his expressions after a while_.

"Your honesty puts me to shame," said V, shaking his head self-depreciatingly, "as does your courage. I could have killed you, and you knew this, yet you faced your fear. It seems that I was quite right to contact you once more."

"Where do we go from here, then?" said Edward. He glanced down at Nelson, who was sitting upright, his lip lifted, studying them both with an attitude of determined concentration, and then returned his attention to V.

"Go home," V told him. "Be with your family. If anything can save humanity, it is love and selflessness. I wish I could appreciate that, but in lieu of experience I have understanding. I will make no further requests of either of you, if that is your wish."

"That wasn't what I said," Edward shot back. "Do you think I thought twice about putting my life on the line for you? If that's the case, then _you_ didn't listen to _me_ either, did you?" He ground to a halt, looked down at the dog once more, and went on. "All that I'm asking is that you be more careful. Robbing trains is stupid. I'd tell any one of mine the same thing, so I'm telling you too. Okay?"

V stretched out a hand. With that skewed eye for detail that came as part of the package of confusion and desperation, Edward noticed for the first time that instead of the heavy leather gauntlets that had fitted the costume his late wife had made, V now wore light, close-fitting velvet gloves, although still in the same shade of perfect and unsullied black.

This mad observation done with, Edward reached out and shook the hand. Beneath the velvet, which was otherwise quite smooth and soft, he swore that he could still feel the ridges of scar tissue on those fingers. It was faintly perturbing, but he maintained his grip even so.

"We have an accord," said V, and laughed pleasantly.

After Edward had gone, leading Nelson – who'd left with several mournful backward glances and with his tail at half-mast – V waited in a pool of silence for several minutes, to make sure that he was alone once more. His ears picked out the smack of the latch on the outer door, and he turned towards this, marking time for the next sixty seconds.

Only after this did he reach up and unbuckle the mask, sliding it away from his face with painstaking care. He laid it upon the piano and picked up the wine glass, draining the rest of the contents in one healthy draught.

Still moving with exquisite patience, he leaned across the glossy surface towards the candelabra and snuffed the first flame. A pause, and he then extinguished the second, leaving the cellar in darkness pierced only by the guttering light of the one remaining candle. He grinned fiercely, and then blew out this last flame, plunging the gallery into thick and impenetrable darkness.

Then, walking with the sure-footed grace of any other creature of shadows, he replaced the mask, checked the knife-belt and crossed the room to fetch his cloak.

* * *

><p>Gordon's mobile phone buzzed, the vibration turning it around on its axis until it fetched up against the water glass, and it was the resultant clicking and jangling that woke him with a jolt and a laboured gasp.<p>

He groped for the phone, missed it by inches, and was just a second too late to take the call. He blinked several times, wiped the grit out of his eyes and focused on the screen. One missed call from Anne. He debated calling her back immediately, but soon after came to an instinctive conclusion that, whatever she wanted, if she were calling him at home it was bound to be something so complicated or stressful that she couldn't handle it by herself; and both of those prospects could wait until he'd woken up a little more.

By the clock on the display, he saw that it was almost one in the afternoon and, thus, that he'd been sleeping for a good six hours. _Dreamless sleep, thankfully_, he added on some lower subconscious plane. He put the phone down, and sagged back into the pillow with a deep, heartfelt sigh along the way.

Sleeping during daylight hours had never really agreed with him. More often than not, when it had been necessary to do so, he'd wake with a vague but indomitable malaise about him that nothing but fresh air could cure. Of course, he was forced to admit, that was usually because he'd been used to waking late with a titanic hangover.

As he nursed this revealing contemplation as if it were an orphaned kitten, his phone buzzed again, just once. Rolling over, he picked it up to see that there was a text message waiting. Opening it, he saw a short and somewhat acidic _billet-doux_ from Anne.

_I know you're there. Meet me in the Dick Whittington on Highgate Hill at 3._

There was, he knew, no getting out of it. After three eventful years, Anne had a better understanding of Gordon's mental processes than he did himself, and she'd know that he'd picked her message up. More importantly, if he didn't turn up, she'd know why not, which meant that he was effectively trapped. Groaning quietly, he struggled out of bed and headed downstairs.

He found a scrawled note on the kitchen message board as he went to make some much-needed tea. _Have taken Nelson for a walk. Be back this evening. Might stay a few days if that's all right. Sorry I didn't wake you but I thought you needed it. Dad x_

Perusing this shorthand for meaning within context, Gordon decided that he was far too tired and drained to over-analyse anything much, and switched on the kettle without further contemplation. As he waited for the water to boil, he composed a short message to Anne, accepting her request.

* * *

><p>He headed out to Highgate some time later in an extremely ambivalent state of mind. He no longer believed that Anne's summons had anything whatsoever to do with work and, if he were honest with himself, had never really believed so from the start. The late autumn sun, though low in the sky and heading for another boiler of a sunset, was strong enough, and after a while he pulled his sunglasses out and slipped them on as he drove.<p>

Gordon wasn't overly familiar with the area, but the pub was easy enough to find, near the crest of Highgate Hill and directly opposite a looming, dark stone Catholic church. He pulled his glasses off as he stepped into the musty interior of the pub, looked around and spotted Anne propping up the bar as if she'd been there all afternoon.

"Okay," he said, wearily, wandering over to her. "What've I done now?"

Anne stared at him over the rim of her glass for long seconds, then finally lowered her drink and turned to face him.

"It's more about what you haven't done, my dear," she said tartly. "You see, I had this insane idea that we were friends, but I might have been wrong. You've been ignoring me for a week now. The only time I can get any sensible conversation out of you is when it's work-related. Why?"

Gordon had been expecting many lectures from this meeting, but this particular spiel was so far outside his frame of reference that he hadn't even begun to compose a response in advance. He choked faintly, rewound his brain and stared down at the carpet as he spoke.

"I didn't realise I'd been doing that," he said, all honesty. "Can you forgive me? I didn't mean to put you aside. And we _are_ friends," he added, softly, finally looking back up into Anne's penetrating blue eyes. She reached out to where his hand lay on the bar, and squeezed it firmly.

"Of course I can forgive you, you stupid sod," she said, still grasping his fingers. "I've forgiven far bigger idiots than you in my time. The trouble is..." she went on, and now withdrew her hand slowly, "...the trouble is that that's not all I wanted to talk to you about. Do you mind if we go for a walk? I don't want to do this in here."

Anne led the way across the road and around the corner into a steep, winding little side alley that, where it wasn't overhung with tree branches, was overshadowed by towering edifices on both sides. The sunlight was nothing but a suggestion as they headed southward and, after a moment's pause for thought, Gordon realised where she must be taking him.

"Highgate Cemetery," said Anne, smiling gently, as they reached the imposing wrought iron gates. "I love this place. Grew up not far away. One time," she said, now lowering her voice, "I ran away from home and thought I'd spend the night in here. My resolve lasted until sunset, and then I ran like billy-oh."

Without further ado and without giving him time to comment, she pushed through the gate and paid their admission price, then beckoned him down the main pathway into the tangled forest of mausoleums, marble angels and moss-hung steles. The gravel paths were well-kept enough, although they stuck to the middle of the pathway to avoid the healthy puddles of slick, rich mud that lurked to either side.

"I always come here when I need to get some serious thinking done," Anne told him, still not meeting his gaze. Rather, she stared at the glimpses of sky that peeked between the branches of yew and oak, watching a squirrel race through the canopy and hearing it disturb a blackbird, which rocketed out of the tree with a strident _ik-ik-ik_ of alarm.

"Anne..." Gordon began, but she'd already moved on. He shrugged, bewildered, and followed her around a bend in the track.

She'd come to a halt beside one of the few graves that he'd known was here; Karl Marx's. Gordon peered up at the colossal stone bust with vague distaste, and stopped for a moment to consider that even in death, he would not and could not be so tasteless as to request a monument _that_ self-aggrandising.

He approached Anne and, as he did so, she stepped up on her toes, which was a necessity given the difference in their heights, and took his face between her palms. He flinched momentarily, but stood firm, and could only note with some curious mental distance that her hands were uncommonly warm.

"I want you to look me in the eye and tell me something, Gordon Deitrich," she said, her fingers pressing into his cheek. "I want you to tell me that you had nothing to do with Tricia's death."

In the painful silence that followed this, Gordon heard the blackbird whisper past them on silken wings, still chiming out its panic over some threat or other. He remained fixed by Anne's gaze, however, and thought with painstaking care about each and every word that he was about to utter.

"I can't," he said, and then wondered how his carefully composed mental speech had been transmogrified, on the way out, into these two hopeless and directionless syllables. He knew that in the half of one second that he'd taken to say them, he'd given almost everything away. He saw, at long last, Anne's expression falter and shift into something that looked like a blend of horror, dismay and grief and was much more than the sum of those parts.

"I didn't kill her," he whispered, not out of expediency, for there were no eavesdroppers, but simply because his throat seemed to have shrivelled and dried. "I got her involved, and that's why she's dead. Anne, for God's sake, you must see that's why I have to keep you _out _of all this."

Anne had removed her touch from his face now, although she remained close, and took his hand instead. Gordon saw an errant tear form on her lower lashes, and couldn't watch any more. He turned his face up to the darkening sky instead.

"But you do know who did kill her?" she asked, stumbling a little over the phrase.

"I do, but..." he cleared his throat, since his voice had all but disappeared now, "...I can't go to the police. Please don't ask me why. Just trust me. I wouldn't do or say anything that I didn't think was necessary to keep you safe."

"And who's going to keep _you_ safe?" she retorted, her head on one side, eyes rimmed with red.

Gordon was about to respond when some sixth sense jerked his head up savagely. He swung around, looking for something that had snatched at his peripheral attention. At last, he turned back and stared past Anne's shoulder to the clustering graves in the older section of the cemetery; stones and tombs that were placed so close together that there was barely passage between them, and in some cases what little space there was had been filled with shrubs and trees. Somewhere in that nightmarish jungle, somewhere in its gathering shadows, he had seen a flash of silver and a trace of black.

He stepped around Anne and headed for the dense foliage, his heart constricting and struggling in his chest as if preparing itself for the very last beat of his life.


	14. Conclusions

Gordon pushed through the bracken and into the maze of tombstones, turning his head from side to side in the damp gloom of the arched canopy of yews. His heart was still fluttering beneath his sternum, but this erratic palpitation gradually gave way to a more sedate thump as he realised that he was alone.

He'd been so _sure_ of what he'd seen, although he admitted that his overworked imagination had probably supplied a detail or two. That flash and glint might have come from one of the houses on the far side of the ironwork fence. The flicker of black might have been a carrion crow diving into the undergrowth. He dropped his head into his hands and stumbled, leaning back against a nearby headstone, whispering to himself.

Anne moved into this cold, misty grotto, squelching through a puddle to join him. She was shaking her head in bafflement, and she reached out, gently tugging Gordon's hands away from his face.

"What in God's name was all that about?" she whispered, hoarsely. Gordon sniffed and raised his head.

"I wouldn't worry about it," he said, savagely. "I'm just seeing things. Excuse me while I go completely mad, won't you?" Anne folded her arms and nodded sagely.

"I'm not hugely surprised," she told him. "You're under a lot of pressure, plus this is what happens when you go cold turkey." Gordon started, and he knitted his brows before he understood exactly what she was referring to.

"Oh...yes," he said, shrugging mournfully. "To tell you the truth, I'd forgotten all about drinking, but it looks like it hadn't forgotten about _me_. You really think that's all it is?

They both flinched at that point as a bell rang, some way away to the west. For a second, Gordon thought tremulously of police sirens, but Anne sighed heavily and turned away from the sound.

"We'd better go," she said, carefully, taking his arm as if he were made of spun glass. "They're closing the cemetery."

They walked back to the entrance in silence, although Gordon couldn't help but cast a glance or two over his shoulder as they left. The shadows between the trees were spilling out across the path as if they were a pack of hunting dogs driving their quarry into an ambush. Gordon shivered involuntarily as this metaphor trickled through his brain, and then wondered exactly where it had come from. He wasn't normally given to such excesses of poetry, although perhaps he was learning, even if only by osmosis.

"What now?" he heard Anne say, as they reached the gates that led into the park. Gordon flickered, dragged his gaze away from the murky cemetery, and refocused his attention.

"I honestly have no idea," he sighed. "I think I've extracted myself from the situation, but I'm not sure that it's over yet."

"Remind me again. Why can't you go to the cops?" asked Anne, linking her arm through his and leading him along the winding path through the shrubbery.

_Okay,_ Gordon said to himself. _Which reason are you going to give her? That you owe V your life? That you're fascinated by him? That you're afraid of him? That you're in far too deep to risk telling the police? All of the above?_

He knew that none of these was the right answer or, at least, not right now. Nothing he could say would provoke anything but further anxiety in Anne's mind. Instead, he turned, and took her by the arm. Several passers-by spared them a curious glance in mid-stride, but he reasoned that to the uneducated eye, the two of them must make rather an odd couple.

"No more questions," he said, huskily. "What's happening has its own pace, and I don't think I can change that no matter what I do or say. I can't act on anyone's advice because this is now out of my hands, but I do need a friendly ear. Yes?" he finished, and squeezed Anne's shoulder momentarily. She turned away from him for a second, and at that moment the very last rays of the sun filtered through her soft blonde hair and lent her an archangel's halo. Gordon studied her profile, traced in amber light, and thought her quite beautiful.

"All right," she said, turning back, though her voice skipped as she did so. "I'll let it be. I'm not going to blackmail you into talking. Now, why don't we go to mine for a cup of tea? I'm only just on the other side of the park..." With that, Anne smiled gently and led the way up the hill. Gordon was several steps behind, and after one last backward glance – at what, he wasn't sure – he followed.

On the far side of the black railings, behind the cavorting bindweed and encroaching rust, a shadow shifted minutely. Something caught the twilight and, for a second, reflected it in two starlike flashes. Then, the cemetery reclaimed its peace, and the undergrowth lay dormant once more.

* * *

><p>At that time, meanwhile, Finch was sitting alone on a very sophisticated but very uncomfortable velvet sofa in Holborn, feeling as conspicuous as he'd ever done in his life.<p>

The sofa in question was in the reception of the London office of the De Beers trading company, and Finch was waiting to keep an appointment that he'd struggled to secure. He kept his gaze focused upon the clock on the far side of the reception desk, chiefly because every time he happened to glance at the young woman behind the desk, she would offer him an embarrassingly sympathetic smile.

Thus it was that he'd been waiting for over twenty minutes when a discreet beep sounded from the desk, and the receptionist led him into an office that was more palatial than any he'd ever seen. A woman was stalking around the desk to greet him even as the receptionist bowed out and closed the door.

She was dressed in a blinding crimson suit and, Finch noticed as she reached out a hand, had lacquered her nails in a shade that matched her attire perfectly. She offered him a very professional, very thin and very momentary smile, shook his hand as if she were accepting a dead fish, and then retreated behind her desk, waving a languorous arm at the chair to indicate that he should sit down.

"My name is Marilyn Vogel, Detective Sergeant," she said, smoothly, her voice flavoured with a suggestion of a South African accent which, he assumed, she was assiduously trying to shed. "I'm Director of sales and shipping for De Beers London. How may I be of assistance?"

"Thank you for seeing me, Ms. Vogel," said Finch, just as professionally, dimly aware that some game was being played. "I'll try not to keep you very long. The fact is that I'm investigating a theft which has since been linked to a murder case. We, er..." he added, rooting out the lists and handing them over, "...we understand that the shipment was one of yours. Could you confirm that for me?"

She pinched the papers between finger and thumb and laid them in front of her, wrinkling her nose as she studied the figures. After a few seconds, she drew one polished carmine fingernail down the list, producing a very faint scratching noise, and then tutted flamboyantly as she looked back up at him.

"I'm sorry," she said, rather sharply. "These aren't our diamonds."

"Are you sure?"

"As sure as I'm ever going to be, Detective," said Ms. Vogel, managing to work a splash of irony into her tone. "When we're required to mark a shipment for a customer, we use eleven-digit serial numbers. These numbers have only nine digits."

Finch sat forward in his chair, brow furrowed. He reached out and removed the papers from the desk, scrutinising the woman carefully before playing his next card.

"I wonder if you could make a formal statement to that effect?"

"I'm afraid not," she said, and as he watched, Finch could _see_ her withdrawing defensively. She folded both arms across her chest, creasing the line of her immaculate suit, and her lips flattened out into a thin, bloodless line. Finch started to speak, but she cut across him.

"I apologise, Detective," she continued, "and I'd like you to know that this isn't _my _position. Granting you an appointment was as far as my employers were prepared to go. They won't countenance any further involvement in..." she hesitated, seeking a word "...in this sordid matter. De Beers have an untarnished reputation in the world diamond market, and they wish to keep it."

For a split second, Finch considered persisting, but he caught the glaze in the woman's eye, and thought better of it. She was merely relaying orders from someone much higher up the scaffold and, while he could in theory do worse things to his career than to annoy the captains of a multi-billion pound international industry, he couldn't think of any right at that point.

He forced his straining hackles back down with a tremendous effort of will, and merely stood up, stowing the papers away in his inside pocket.

"Thank you for your time, anyway," he said, wearily, pulling his overcoat around him, determined to play just as defensive. "You've been very helpful. If you change your mind, you can reach me at this number." So saying, he pulled a card from his pocket and laid it precisely and carefully on the polished walnut desk.

It seemed that Ms. Vogel was out of words for the time being. She offered Finch no more than a small but abrupt nod in response, and he turned on his heel and stalked out of the office.

Finch drove back to New Scotland Yard in an inexplicably tempestuous mood, and even ignored the repeated blurting of his mobile phone. During a stop at a red light, he picked it up and saw that he'd missed three calls from McLennan.

"Bugger," said Finch, under his breath, and then started violently as the driver behind him sounded their horn. Jerking his head back up, he saw that the light had changed, and he stamped down on the accelerator from naked reflex, leaving a wail of overstressed tyres behind him and wondering, with a small, sour smile pasted across his face, what the driver would say if he knew he'd just needled a plainclothes police officer.

He pulled up outside the Yard and got out, all but ending up in the arms of a parking attendant. The man stepped back and frowned very pointedly at Finch's car, but Finch pulled out his warrant card and waved it vaguely in the air between them. Nodding soberly at the parking attendant, he excused himself with a faintly impatient shrug and trotted through the main doors.

The reception was unusually busy, but Finch spotted McLennan by the door to the lift lobby, and dodged his way through the crowd.

"Inspector?" he called, still side-stepping passers-by. He studied McLennan's face, and even in his impatience he could see a skewed and unsettled expression nailed to his superior's face, almost as if Finch were the last thing he needed to see right now. Disregarding this, though, he edged up against McLennan and pulled out the list he'd taken to De Beers.

"Sir, I just got back from De Beers, they're denying they had anything to do with the shipment..."

"Finch, this isn't the time," said McLennan, _sotto voce_, hooking a finger into his collar and tugging it distractedly. Finch, however, continued, relentlessly.

"Got to get onto this right away," he said, tugging at the thread. "If we can prove those diamonds were _already_ stolen, we'll have a better idea who we're after, and..."

"We'll discuss this later," McLennan repeated, this time raising the volume a shade and giving his words a keener edge.

"...De Beers don't want to talk about it and I'm bloody sure they're hiding something..."

"_Detective Sergeant Finch!_" snapped McLennan, his voice little less than an authoritarian bellow. Out of the corner of his eye, Finch saw half a dozen heads turn in their direction, and the conversation in their immediate circle faltered in its tracks. Finch felt McLennan's hand close around his elbow, and then he was ushered out of the main thoroughfare and into a nearby alcove.

Only now did he take in the details of the scene, his guts forming themselves into a series of sinuous knots as he did so. He caught sight of the two men that McLennan had been involved in conversation with, and realised with a rapidly unfolding flower of dismay that he knew them both. One was the Viscount Scarsdale, the other the Commissioner. Both were directing narrow-eyed glances at Finch, and he was horribly aware that they could scarcely have failed to hear every word he'd said.

He turned his attention to McLennan, who'd half-turned so that his face was less than six inches away from Finch's.

"Go on up to my office and _wait for me_," hissed McLennan, an ugly bloom rising on his cheek. He squeezed Finch's arm to reinforce his point, and at last, Finch pulled free, turned and plodded towards the lifts. Even with his back turned, he heard McLennan offering a profuse apology to his visitors as he escorted them out.

The inspector's office came as a surprise to Finch, who had thus far never set foot in it. Instead of the painfully neat working space he had pictured given what he'd discerned of his superior officer's character, he walked in upon a tumbling array of lever arch files, ziggurats of paperwork and a desk whose surface was all but lost thanks to the combined efforts of blotter, paper coffee cups, binders, memoranda, notebooks and several framed photographs of the McLennan clan.

Noting that most of the chairs aside from McLennan's were similarly occupied with impromptu filing duty, he elected to remain standing, and instead wandered over to the window. The view from the twelfth floor – which dragged his eye out over the subtle shimmer of the Thames and to the moody rain clouds that were congregating away to the south – was fairly breathtaking, although Finch couldn't seem to recoup any of the breath that he'd already lost downstairs.

He stood, eyes unfocused, hands clenched in his pockets, until the door slammed back and McLennan strode in, apparently borne upon the back of an angry sigh. Finch swung around, feeling a hunted expression metamorphosing his face, but was unable to prevent it from doing so. He waited in silence, both respectful and apprehensive, as McLennan cleared a second chair, dumping the paperwork in his already overburdened In tray, and then slumped down in his own seat.

McLennan folded his hands together, looking as if he might at any moment wrench his own knuckles out of their sockets, and then nodded at the empty chair on the far side of his desk.

"Sit down, Sergeant," he said, flatly, as if his gesture might have suffered misunderstanding. Finch obeyed, and made a conscious decision, as he did so, to keep eye contact no matter what.

"I'm sure," McLennan began, "that I don't need to tell you the purpose of the Commissioner's visit, especially given the additional presence of his Lordship." He shifted his gaze out of the window for a second, and then regrouped. "You're an intelligent man, Finch. Did you think internal politics was any different down here than it is up north?" Assuming a rhetorical question, Finch held his tongue for the time being.

"I won't go over the details," McLennan went on, "and I certainly won't go over the subtext, because once in a lifetime is more than enough. The summary is that I've been _ordered_ to suspend this case and refer it to Interpol."

This time, Finch let an errant thought slip out over his vocal cords.

"So we're going to let someone off the hook for theft, assault and murder because they're an old friend of the Commissioner?"

This time, McLennan looked as if he'd been force-fed a pound of fresh limes, but he struggled valiantly with his facial features as he spoke.

"Yes," he said. "Is that what you wanted to hear? Yes. Okay, I'll admit it. What surprises you about this?" He stopped, visibly pulled up short and then wound down, somewhat more gently than before. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be like this. Do you think it doesn't make me angry as well?"

"No, sir," said Finch, evenly, and as he watched McLennan react with confusion, he pressed on hastily. "I don't think you're angry about it as such, because you've been shoved in it up to your neck for thirty years. If you'd stayed angry all that time, you'd have had an embolism by now."

McLennan's eyebrow contorted at this, as if he'd observed something profoundly surreal and unexpected, such as a talking cat, and this led Finch to the impression that he'd said something the inspector hadn't anticipated. Nevertheless, McLennan rallied admirably and pasted a small smile onto his face.

"You're right," he said, eventually. "I suppose that 'despondent' is a better word. And for what it's worth, I believe you're right about all this. However," he went on, tightening his shoulders, "I'm sure you're aware that any further involvement in this case will be the death of your career. I wish there was a kinder way of putting that, but there isn't."

Finch had by now lost his internal resolve, and was gazing thoughtfully out of the window. He watched a gull wheel past on an updraught, wings sketching out two soft white curves against the damp, darkening sky, and then nodded, turning back to the conversation.

"Is that all there is to it?" he asked, for something to say. He watched the inspector dip his chin, sadly.

"Yes, I'm afraid so," said McLennan. "And this won't be the last time you'll be required to sit on your conscience, either. You'd best get used to it."

"I already am," said Finch, morosely.

* * *

><p>Three hours later, Finch sat alone in the incident room, staring at the files which represented everything they'd garnered on the case so far. He'd watched the shift change, and somewhere at the rear of his mind was the realisation that he ought to have changed with it, heading home for dinner and, with any luck, some of the sleep that had been avoiding him for the last two weeks.<p>

He'd not been able to bring himself to leave. Several people had stuck their heads in through the door in the past few minutes, offered him a puzzled glance, and then left again, presumably dispelled by the tangible miasma of gloom that he'd lent the entire room.

The whiteboard had long since been wiped clean, although it had been documented before being wiped, and this information was now in the file along with the photographs and memos that had accompanied it. Tomorrow, Finch would have to oversee the Herculean task of making three copies of everything in the files, and seeing that these went to Central Records, to Evidence and, by police courier, to Interpol.

_Why Interpol_, he asked himself, not for the first time since leaving McLennan's office, although he had since formed the shrewd suspicion that this was an attempt, on the Commissioner's part, to make sure that the case was dumped as far from the Met's doorstep as was humanly possible. After all, on the surface, it was a perfectly rational move; with half a million pounds' worth of stolen gemstones and five murders on his slate, someone like Roger Wright would think of nothing more urgent than leaving the country.

He almost laughed as he concocted the idea that, had it been feasible, the Commissioner would probably have referred the case to the FBI instead. Almost, but not quite. Something about the events of the last few hours had formed a heavy coating of rust on his sense of humour, which had never been too limber in any case.

He sat back in his chair for a moment, fingers laced across his chest, and peered out of the window. This room didn't offer the stunning vista that the inspector's office had, since it was only on the second floor, but if Finch's eyes were fixed upon anything at all, it wasn't the view. He cocked an ear as he heard sirens crowing somewhere away to the north, but this was nothing more than a copper's ingrained reflex, and owed nothing to his conscious reactions.

Still, he sat up and listened hard, until he finally identified them as ambulance sirens rather than police ones. At that point, even his hindbrain lost interest, and he rubbed at his eyes with one furious knuckle until a sudden mild sting was alleviated.

Finch drained the last smear of coffee in the bottom of his cup, cringing as he realised that there was nothing left but dregs, and stone-cold dregs at that. He then pulled the nearest folder towards him over the table, peeled back the cover and leafed through the stack of documents inside, his eyes flickering over the text. After a while, they began to glaze over.

He stopped, snorted in mild surprise, and paused on a page about halfway down the file. Opening the clip, careful not to dislodge the leaves on either side, he pulled out the formal statement that Gordon Deitrich had given some time ago. It comprised four A4 pages, and both the handwritten copy and the typed transcript were stapled together at one corner. The third copy, the tape recording of the interview, would have since been filed away in the basement alongside the portable evidence, but...

Finch swallowed heavily as an idea hit him like a stray sniper's bullet, and caused much the same amount of damage upon impact. Hard upon the heels of this was the stark understanding, coupled with McLennan's clear and unequivocal warning, that there was no way he could pursue this course of action without running the risk of dismissal at the very least and, if he were honest, it would probably amount to a much greater likelihood of disciplinary action and even prosecution.

This verdict was overruled, however, by the darker and much less subtle part of his brain; the part that had led to his joining the police in the first place, the part that could no more resist the lure of the chase than could a foxhound. Every clamour of civilised inhibition was gripped in its jaws and ripped head from tail from limb, and it was this animal urge that reached down his arm, took possession of his hand and forced it to turn to the last page of the statement.

There, with eyes narrowing painfully, he skipped over the florid signatures and found exactly what he was looking for.

* * *

><p>The last Piccadilly Line train had passed by almost an hour before, and nothing disturbed the tunnel now but the scuffling of a browsing rat.<p>

It hopped over a sleeper and landed in the gravel on the far side. The live rail stretched away beside it, for all intents and purposes all the way into infinity, but the animal knew from long experience that in the small hours of the morning, when the rail wasn't humming, it presented no threat. It gathered its hindquarters, twitched its tail once or twice, and leapt onto the live rail itself, hesitated, then dropped back down into the detritus on the far side.

This brought it alongside a platform and, at one and the same time, to the lip of the suicide pit beneath the rails. The drop gave it pause, but just then a soft scrape from the gloom of the platform had it pricking its ears and rising to its back feet for a better view of the situation.

Its beady black eyes met another pair, but these were a pellucid shade of blue, and carefully focused. V lowered the whetstone from the edge of the dagger and regarded the rat just as intently as it was regarding him. He watched, not moving a muscle, as its nose flickered, and then it dropped back down onto all fours and slipped down the wall of the pit, being lost to sight in its depths.

V sighed like a midnight breeze, returned to the task at hand, and continued to draw the whetstone down the edges of the blade; first one side, then the other, his movements both effective and economical. There was no light in this vaulted chamber save for the firefly glow of the emergency bulbs in the ceiling, and these did little more than add angles to the shadows. Nevertheless, each turn of the stone along the knife brought a brief glimmer to the cutting edges of the blade, and each dull flash raised a pinpoint sparkle in his slanted eyes.

It had been necessary to remove the mask, the better to see what he was doing in the suffocating gloom of the abandoned station. Every few strokes, however, V would pause and drop a hand to his side, fingers brushing the mask where it lay, as if assuring himself that it was still there. The gesture was performed without glance and even without thought; it was more instinct than anything else.

As he worked, he took gentle sips of the air in the station. It was indefatigably stale, and there was nothing about it that wouldn't have led any other observer to the rightful conclusion; namely that this twisted crawlspace of a station had been more or less left to the mercy of the subterranean nightlife for at least the past fifty years.

Most others would have quit the area with a wrinkle of distaste stamped across their face, but V found in the stagnant air, if not enjoyment, then at least equanimity. He'd smelled far worse in his existence, and had in any event come to the decision that solitude was well worth the price of a little foul air from time to time.

After several more minutes, apparently satisfied with the result of his labours, V held the blade up to eye level and turned it to and fro against what little light he could find, checking the cutting edge for nicks, dents or other flaws. Seeing that there were none, he loosed a soft growl of approval, and then tugged at his glove, exposing the fresh, rough scars beneath.

Turning the knife in his right hand, bringing the point of the blade around with deliberate care, he pressed the tip to the pad of his index finger and pushed fractionally, grimacing as he did so, although not without some bizarre new species of humour. His pupils dilated as a rich droplet of blood, almost black in the dim light, welled up around the cold steel.

Disregarding the pain this brought, V increased the pressure until the droplet swelled and, finally, burst, sliding down his finger and across his palm. Withdrawing the blade, he cocked his head curiously and then slipped the needle-sharp point into the pad of his ring finger, applying the same pressure, forming another fat bead of his own blood around the intrusive metal. This, too, sagged and fell, and sketched out a thin crimson line of its own upon his mottled flesh.

V watched, barely drawing breath, as the bloodied streams traced out his lines of Life and Fate, converged and, eventually, intersected in the subtle valley at the heel of his palm. This slow trickle passed on its way, slipping beneath the cuff of his tunic, but he ignored it, still fascinated by the pattern that he'd wrought on his hand.

"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes," he murmured, his eyes now no longer banked and dormant, but rising with a phoenix-like firelight that had nothing to do with the meagre illumination above him.

He smiled now, not the distorted visage that earlier discomfort had created, but a dreamlike study in contentment as he watched the vivid scarlet 'V' drying on his skin.


	15. Pursuit

Finch drew the car into a fortuitous parking space some thirty yards from the house he was looking for, dragged the handbrake up with a decisive tug, unbuckled his seatbelt and slumped back into his seat, sighing breathlessly all the while.

The street was preternaturally quiet, and the blanket of silence pressed in upon his ears to an almost uncomfortable degree until he adjusted to the fact that here in a quiet, affluent backwater of Green Park, unlike his own home ground in Lambeth, midnight meant what it said.

The engine finally settled down, leaving nothing but the steady tick of Finch's watch to punctuate the still air. He sat rigid for a few minutes, counting the seconds, until he developed the uncomfortable sensation that his heartbeat had become inextricably slaved to the relentless rhythm of the watch, and shook himself out of his torpor.

If Finch had one single space in his head still reserved for honesty of admission, he'd own up to the fact that he'd had no continuity of plan besides the black, dragging desire to find out how Gordon Deitrich was linked to the robbery and the murders, if indeed he was. What he'd do if he found a link, he had no idea. Who he'd take his tale to, he couldn't say. The most he was able to cling on to was the hope that he might at least be satisfied with knowing the truth behind the affair, even if it couldn't end in an arrest.

Even as he shifted in his seat, though, Finch tacked a mental scarlet letter onto his last parcel of consideration and branded it a lie. This sudden movement had pressed something bulky and angular into his side, beneath his overcoat, and this in itself was enough to resurrect the memory of the strange kink in his thought processes that had assailed him just before he'd left his flat.

He'd taken his gun from the wardrobe and cradled it in his palm, hesitating for no reason that he could immediately identify. It was a standard police issue revolver, and Finch had never felt as much as a hint of doubt regarding its capabilities. Disregarding this unreasonable fillip, he'd been about to holster the weapon when he'd paused once more, this time flicking through some disturbing mental back catalogue.

Someone had killed six people with insolent ease, pitting knives and bare hands against men so inured to violence that they probably even went to bed armed. Someone had snapped Patricia Garnet's neck with one hand, and Finch was painfully aware that breaking necks was nowhere near as simple as the movies held it to be. Someone had had both the brute strength and the medical precision to render three railway staff unconscious with a single pinpoint blow.

The post mortem photos had clicked through his mind as if on a ratchet; a procession of thin-lipped gashes bled white and bleached whiter still by the lash of the pathologist's hose. There'd been not one wasted slash, not one unnecessary slice, not one hasty, uneven jab. There weren't even, he realised with a sick lurch in his stomach, any defence cuts on their hands. Every wound on those corpses had been functional and efficient to the point of being pathological and served no other purpose than to kill, and kill very well.

The conclusion that his fear-plated mind was trying desperately to avoid was that whoever he was going out to hunt was much stronger and much faster than he was. Glancing back down at the weapon in his hand, he'd felt the last of his confidence in it dissolve and put it back, reaching instead for the box at the back of the shelf.

Now, Finch unshipped the heavy pistol from the shoulder holster and stared at it as if expecting it to bite. It was a Heckler & Koch Mk23 with laser sight that he'd picked it up on a drug raid four years before. Why he hadn't turned it in at the time, he had no idea, and he'd stowed the loaded weapon away in spite of every instinct born in the back of his otherwise methodical, conscientious police officer's brain that was screaming at him not to be so monumentally stupid.

It was a trophy, he'd decided later, although without much conviction. The big game hunter's entitlement. It had spent the next few years resting very securely inside a locked steel box at the back of his wardrobe, waiting for..._waiting for this moment,_ said Finch in the confines of his head, although he blanched at the melodramatic cast of the phrase and shoved it aside as soon as he'd conceived it.

He shivered reflexively and put the pistol away once more, although he remained overly conscious of its bulk, nestling almost smugly against his ribs.

Applying a mental slap to his attention, Finch turned his gaze back toward the house up the street and settled down once more, still trying to ignore the weapon under his coat. In spite of the fact that he felt as if he were wearing a prickling robe of apprehension, he was idiotically tired after more than a week of excesses, late nights and fractured sleep due to the demands of the case, and his eyelids fluttered gently before he realised what was going on, and propped himself back up.

He'd brought a coffee from the canteen at the Yard, but that had been more than two hours previously, and he didn't have a doubt that it would be well on its way to stone cold by now. Even so, caffeine was where you found it, and he prised the lid from the cup and swallowed, trying to see that as much of it as possible bypassed his keener tastebuds.

As an aid to the coffee, he reached out and drew the window down. The breeze that crept into the car was colder than he'd thought it would be, but if it helped to keep him awake, all to the good. Propping the half empty cup on the dashboard, he blinked heavily and dropped his hands to the bottom of the steering wheel, feeling the faintest, lightest slick of sweat between his fingertips and the cool plastic.

After several minutes, Finch's eyelids wavered again and, this time, he didn't fight them. His breathing slowed and hissed in his chest as he sank into a light doze.

Some time crept by, during which the white-noise mutter of passing traffic on the distant Park Lane served only to shepherd Finch into a darker and sweeter sleep. Occasionally, he would shift and snort, but other than this, he sailed effortlessly toward dreams.

The shadows outside the car barely moved, although something moved within them, and it was as if the figure had brought the fog with it on the trailing edge of its cloak. Fresh, sticky tendrils of autumn mist played and curled around its feet as it moved, and appeared to deaden the sound of its footsteps as it approached the vehicle.

A pause, more for effect than for confirmation, and then V stooped and glanced into the open window of the car, studying the detective with a mixture of detached curiosity and refined amusement. Reaching out as carefully as a spider spinning a web, he passed one gloved hand in front of Finch's face, and the slightest, mildest chuckle escaped his lips as Finch merely went on sleeping.

V reached lower now, and inched his fingers inside the detective's coat, still moving with insectile patience. A brief moment of hesitancy as Finch turned his head in the depths of dozing, and then onward. Finding a wallet, V drew it out and flipped back the cover, scrutinising the name on the warrant card, as dispassionate as a sculpture.

It was in the midst of replacing this that V's explorations located the butt of the pistol beneath Finch's arm. He liberated a soft breath, taken just a little by surprise, and then uncurled his fingers from the thick grip once more.

V withdrew his hand with some reluctance, although his bearing contrived to suggest that had he not other business to attend to, he'd have been content to play the hunter a little longer. As it was, he stepped back and slipped a hand into his pocket, extracting a small, clear plastic bag.

At the sight of this, V did nothing more obscure or arcane than smile gently beneath the mask, and if anyone had been in a position to see that smile, they would have described it as little short of seraphic. Since the mask continued to smile for him anyway, V contented himself with that and then, drawing open the vacuum seal on the bag, he tipped it out into one cupped palm. Meanwhile, the fog continued to thicken, drawing in around the car as if it were pulling a veil over an indecency.

* * *

><p>Gordon lay back on the sofa, suffering a vague idea that he should go to bed, but torn between this and the knowledge that it would be too much effort to get up again, open the door and climb the stairs, especially as he was reasonably comfortable where he was.<p>

He'd returned, some time previously, from an end-of-shooting party that the director had decided to throw at the last minute. _Almost literally_, Gordon reflected acerbically, although he found he was hard pressed to believe that Ray Broadman could lay on a decent party even if he'd had the rest of the millennium to lay the groundwork.

It had been Gehenna, as far as Gordon was concerned. Not only was he the star of the show, and as such denied the luxury of being able to linger on the sidelines near the buffet table, but he'd spent the entire evening with a facetious grin plastered over his face, apparently being introduced to people he already knew very well, and all the time conscious of the thick glass wall that separated him from everyone else.

He had felt like an overlay. He'd been shuttled from pillar to post, smiling blankly, making the smallest small talk he possibly could, and all the while carrying the nightmarish idea that he need only scratch at the surface of it all to uncover a hint of the dark, corrupted mess that lay beneath the illusion.

It had all been too much to maintain, after a while. Gordon had formed a half-hearted story about a migraine, nodded graciously at the assembled crew and withdrawn.

There had been a note from Edward on the coffee table, announcing that he was going to bed, and wishing Gordon goodnight. Nelson, for his part, was curled up in the armchair, and had raised no more than a _laissez-faire_ eyebrow as Gordon entered the room.

Gordon was now slumped on the sofa as if someone had opened his valve and deflated him. He pulled at the bow tie, not yanking quite as hard as he'd have liked to, mindful of the fact that it was a rented tuxedo. The knot slipped, and he eased it away from his neck, then popped the top button on his shirt and inhaled both noisily and gratefully now that he no longer felt as if he were being garrotted.

From his supine position, he turned an eye upon Nelson. The dog gave every impression of being sound asleep, but Gordon could see that the animal's eyes were merely slitted rather than closed. Wondering why, he craned his neck a little, but Nelson was giving nothing further away.

Gordon lifted his head a little, and swallowed a mouthful of lukewarm Perrier. That done, he propped the glass on his chest and stared at it, his eyes lit by the hypnotic rainbows shot through the crystal by the table lamp.

_How in God's name are you going to get back to your life after all this,_ he asked himself, his eyes still fixed – although not quite focused – upon those haunting lights. Each flicker carried a fractured memory with it. Diamonds...blood...rats...tunnels...desire. Disjointed images shuffled through his mind like a zoetrope, simultaneously both fleeting and persistent. Without warning, a hot tear ran from the corner of his eye; he ignored it.

The living room door squeaked back on its hinges, and Edward slipped into the room. His hair was awry, and Gordon could see that if his father had been sleeping at all, he'd been sleeping badly and sporadically. He shifted up and made room on the sofa.

"Just got home?" asked Edward, subsiding onto the cushions. Gordon nodded slowly.

"About fifteen minutes ago," he said in an undertone, trying his best not to disturb the dozing Nelson. "I didn't wake you up, did I?"

"No, no," Edward replied, just as softly. "I never sleep that well away from the farm, don't you worry about it. So, how was this party of yours?"

"I...er," Gordon began, and then caught his father's eye. He spotted the glint he'd known since he was old enough to string a sentence together; the glint that said _if you lie to me, I'll know_, and he subsided, changing direction. "Not good," he said instead, shaking his head distractedly. "I don't feel as if I _belong_ any more. Do you know what I mean?"

"More so than you think," murmured Edward, and he sat back, his gaze falling upon the framed print over the fireplace. Gordon followed that gaze, studying the picture with the intensity of anyone else who has found their attention suddenly focused upon an object that has been a part of their local scenery for many years.

Gordon had obtained it from a friend while he was still a student with a contemptible standard of living, trading it for a bottle of apple schnapps. It was a reproduction of Magritte's _Homesickness_, and depicted a fine, white granite bridge upon which were two figures, glowing beneath a slumbering sunset sky, neither of which seemed to wish to pay any attention to the other.

The first, a statuesque lion, lay upon the path in an attitude of idle contemplation, one paw upturned as if it had very recently been studying its pads for something to do to pass the time. Its eyes were cast aside from the artist, towards some unseen object of scrutiny.

The other figure – a man – was, in the manner of most of Magritte's human studies, all but faceless, turned away and staring blindly out over the parapet. He radiated poise and melancholy in equal measure, and the one particular curiosity in the whole composition were the black wings, wind-torn and sombre, folded artlessly upon his back.

The print was one of the few possessions that Gordon had carried with him through all his later incarnations; he had no clear idea what had bonded him to it so intimately, or even why it would have seemed a terrible sacrilege to remove it from the cheap plastic frame that it had come fitted with. All he was able assume for himself was that in some way, the print represented continuity, and that without some anchor to his past, such as it was, he might as well set adrift for good.

Gordon's brow creased as he traced an eye over the figure leaning upon the parapet; he ran his gaze down over those macabre wings which seemed to draw the eye back and back again, he took in the fine black clothing and the all but horizontal set of the man's shoulders, which bespoke many ambivalent emotions, chief amongst which was echoing loneliness sheathed in a thick protective cloak of hauteur.

This was unfamiliar to him. Despite his best intentions, Gordon doubted that his initial reaction to the painting had been even one-tenth this abstruse, and had probably stretched no further than relief at having finally found something large enough to cover the unsightly tear in his bedroom wallpaper.

This time, things were subtly but crucially different. Gordon's eyes rounded out, he stared at the back of the pensive, winged figure in the picture and slotted several more pieces of the jigsaw into place_._

Only then did it occur to him that his father was speaking. He started, and half-turned.

"Sorry, Dad," he mumbled. "I was miles away. What was that?"

"It doesn't matter," said Edward, kindly. "I know where you were, anyway." He reached over, picked up the Perrier from the table and drank what remained inside. Pulling a face, he set the empty bottle back down on the glass top with painstaking care and sat back again. Returning unfocused eyes to the print, he went on.

"What you want to know, unless I'm wrong, is this," he said, evenly. "You want to know how to get on with your life after what he's put you through. Right?"

"That's the essence of it, yes," said Gordon, seeing no point in embellishment, understanding that his father was several steps ahead in any event.

"Do you think there's some big secret to that, my boy?"

"If there is, I'd like to know about it."

"Well, there isn't," said Edward, gruffly, and then, appearing to recant this clipped tone, softened his features and turned towards his son. "No secret at all, you understand, besides this one: you do what you have to do. That's all. The alternative is crawling under a blanket and never, ever coming out again for the rest of your life. Don't you think there were times I wanted to do that after your mum died?"

Gordon couldn't help it. His eyes burned, and he sagged. For long seconds, he bore an image of his mother's face in his mind. Not as he'd last seen her, not wasted and pale, but blossoming with youth and with a healthy rose in each cheek. Then, just as abruptly as it had arrived, this chromatic memory withered and left him alone.

"Don't _you_ feel different, though?" he asked, working the words through the sharp catch in his throat. "The party tonight...I couldn't. Something set me apart from everyone else. I could _feel_ it."

"Something's always set you apart, son," was the reply, given as gently as a hug, but it wasn't until Gordon felt his father's rough, worn hand on the back of his neck that he drew his knees up beneath his chin and shivered deeply and penetratingly.

"Is that a good or a bad thing?" he asked, his voice a little muffled.

"That's entirely up to you," said Edward. "The only person who's in charge of your feelings is you."

There was a faint sigh from the floorboards in the hall. The living room door swung back once more, but this time it was with a ringing sense of inevitability that Gordon glanced up, eyes pink and misted, to see V gliding through the doorway.

In the smoky gloom of the room, he looked even taller than ever before, and held his hat reverently before him, clasped between elegantly spread fingers. A shaft of light from the sodium lamps outside had strayed through a minor chink in the curtains, painted a gilded highlight down the supple curve of the mask's roseate cheek and tinted the arch of its nose. The rest of his form, black enough to provide nothing more than an echo to a shadow, was in thrall to the darkness.

"Gordon, Edward," said V, his smooth voice oiled further still with propriety. "You'll forgive my intrusion, but matters can no longer be resolved without consultation."

The solemnity of the statement suffered somewhat as Nelson woke from a twitch of a dream, bowled from the chair and lumbered up to V's feet, sitting down and paying him no less tribute than a god could expect from a supplicant. V bent to stroke the dog's head warmly, and then straightened up as if no such interruption had taken place. Soft hair swung to and fro for a second and then stilled, curling infinitesimally upon his shoulders.

It was Edward who first found his voice, even clotted as it was through lack of sleep.

"Consultation on what, lad?" he asked, sharply.

"I came to inform you that there is a police officer watching this house," V told him, his tone careless, verging upon banal, and he flicked a hand as he spoke. Edward's reaction, however, was not so dismissive. He hauled himself up from the sofa, vibrating with anger.

"If that's so," he said, forcing the panic from his voice like water from a sponge, "then why the hell did you come here?" V raised a finger, making some token attempt at placation, and waited with precise patience for Edward to subside before continuing.

"I was not seen arriving, believe me," he said. "I entered through the gardens. Thus far I have caused no harm. You will be pleased to hear that the police have suspended the case, in any event."

Edward started to relax, paused, and replayed the last few moments of conversation in his head. Curling one wiry eyebrow, he stepped up to V and fixed those pitch-dark eyes with as steady a stare as he could muster.

"If the case has been suspended," he said, slowly, and then jerked a thumb at the window, "then what is that copper doing out there?"

"Ah," said V, and now he studied the back of one glove as though thoroughly absorbed in its every curve, flaw and stitch. "I don't believe that Detective Sergeant Finch is acting within the purview of the law any more. He is, to employ a _dreadfully_ hackneyed metaphor, a loose cannon."

Edward allowed a small trickle of relief to soak through his bones, and he wiped one hand down his face.

"That's better," he said, exhaling mightily. "Now if you'll just slip out the..."

"No," said V, not loudly or even emphatically, merely imparting the word with a keen, well-timed spin that cut through Edward's voice like a shark's fin through a lagoon. Edward teetered on the verge of a fresh syllable, but sheer surprise cut him in his tracks, and he fell silent through force of uncertainty as V went on, snaring the sudden gulf in the exchange.

"Do you know the origin of the phrase 'loose cannon', Edward?" asked V, mildly. Edward opened his mouth, hesitated, closed it once more and settled for a confused shake of the head. V nodded gently, as if he'd anticipated this response, and continued. "The term hails from a far more nautical time and place, and refers to the erratic behaviour of a cannon that has broken free of its mount below decks.

"Loose cannons cannot be predicted, Edward. They smash everything in their path. It is probable that the only thing that Mr. Finch will damage upon this errand is his own career and standing, but I cannot tolerate the extant risk that he will also harm _us_."

"So what are you going to do about it?" said a soft voice from somewhere between them. Gordon uncurled himself from his seat, rising inexorably, brushing the creases from his trousers with meticulous care and attention to detail. Only when this was achieved to his satisfaction did he stand up straight and, with an idle fascination for sudden, revelatory detail, it finally occurred to him that he was actually one or two inches taller than V.

_Incredible, the difference that pressure of attitude can make_, he mused but, aside from this annotation, he barely broke stride as he smiled good-naturedly at the death's-head mask in front of him.

"Gordon?" asked V.

"I asked what you were planning to do about this," repeated Gordon, quite patiently.

Beneath the lacquer of self-control, Gordon detected a faint song of puzzlement, and V dipped his head to one side for a moment, as if trying to encompass a troubling new development. Then, breaking the thread of communication between, V stepped back one pace and turned his hat up with a flick of the wrist, settling it on his head with a smart tap and adjusting the brim one quarter of an inch with the same fluid movement.

"Let them be hunted soundly," he said, his voice vibrant with what sounded like rare pleasure. "At this hour lies at my mercy all mine enemies."

Gordon held his breath for long moments, and it seemed to him that V paused for just a few seconds longer than expected, almost as if he were waiting for Gordon to say something else. Then he turned in a flamboyant swirl of cloak, and left the room. Several seconds later, the front door opened and closed with a decisive click. Edward sagged.

"Is he going to..." he began, but was silenced once more as Gordon held up a hand and lapsed into an impenetrable swamp of thought.

"'At this hour lies at my mercy all mine enemies'" he repeated, under his breath, all but oblivious to the presence of his father. "I know what that is, it's..." Jerking his head up, Gordon crossed the room, ducked down behind the armchair and rooted amongst the haphazard volumes on the bottom of the bookshelves. Finding what he sought, he tugged it out with a grunt of satisfaction and flipped the heavy cover back, flickering through the onion-skin leaves as his brow creased.

Edward stepped up and laid a hand on his son's elbow, mystified beyond all reason, but Gordon stopped at a page and ran a finger down one narrow bracket of text, still murmuring distractedly to himself. He froze, then tapped the page firmly and, closing the book smoothly and gently, laid it aside.

Edward's bewilderment grew as he watched Gordon turn on his heel and pace back to the fireplace, hooking his fingers over the limestone mantelpiece, turning his eyes up to the Magritte print.

"So this was a test?" he whispered.

"What's the matter," said Edward, slowly. "What did you find?"

"What if I decide to fail, V?" asked Gordon, still in that same grave monotone. "How much of this depends on my decision, hm?"

"Gordon...?" Edward persisted, wrapping his arms around himself to ward off a chill that was only half the responsibility of the weather. Gordon swung around and took his father by the shoulders.

"I understand everything now, Dad" he said, placidly, "and I know that I have to go after him. If anything happens to me, remember that I love you." With that, he turned away, head down, and stalked out into the hall.

Edward caught Gordon up just as he was shrugging his overcoat on, and pulled something from the next coat hook.

"I can't talk you out of this?" he asked. It occurred to Gordon that he might well have paused before shaking his head, but if he did, then it was fractional.

"Then here," Edward went on, firmly, extending his hand. Gordon took the dog lead and cocked his head, questioning. "You'll never track him alone," Edward went on, trying to explain. "Go on, the pair of you, get going before it's too late."

Nelson had, with his finely tuned sense of hearing, already caught the soft click of his lead, and now sprinted out into the hall, tail lashing. Gordon bent, clipped on the lead and then stood quite still, one hand resting on the latch.

"Your mum'd be proud of you," said Edward, hoarsely, his voice scarcely more than a whisper.

"She'd be proud of you, too," responded Gordon, and then, swinging the door back, he slipped out into the eddying midnight fog, Nelson padding at his side.


	16. Labyrinth

The siren scream of a fox ripped Finch from his slumber with such force that he drew in a frantic, gasping breath before realising where he was.

He struggled up out of the car seat, coming to several important revelations in the process. One was that his awkward position had put a difficult knot in his spine as he'd dozed, and he twisted his neck in an attempt to unscrew the concentrated point of pain.

The other was that a billowing, translucent fog had curdled around the car while he'd been asleep. Finch blinked, trying to clear his eyes, and could swear that the mist was oozing through the window and coiling in his lap. Sighing harshly, he reached out for the remainder of the coffee and downed it in one, reaching the grit and dregs at the bottom of the cup and spitting faintly and bitterly as he did so.

He caught a movement from the corner of his eye as he lowered the empty cup, and for perhaps half a second, caution fought reflex for control of his muscles. Gaining the upper hand, Finch ducked his head and studied the scene outside through half-closed eyes, breathing as lightly and slowly as he could.

The fog was...odd. It was washed through with pink from the sodium streetlights overhead, but that alone couldn't have accounted for its almost nacreous shimmer. Finch's breathing slowed further, and he waited for sight of another shift in the muted shadows.

His breath halted entirely just as a diaphanous shape coalesced from the eddying curtains of mist, drifted between two parked cars on the far side of the street and stopped. Finch saw a half-turn, and then the figure slipped back the hem of a cloak for a second to adjust something at its waist. Even through the fog, Finch saw the low light dart along the edges of three wicked blades.

This vision stabbed through him, and once again he endured the image of those mortal wounds, of alabaster skin and glazed grey eyes on the post mortem table, of deep and constricted wounds made by a knife so sharp that it could slice through taut flesh as if it were soft cheese. Even as the heavy cloak dropped back into place, shielding the daggers from Finch's dull, horrified line of sight once more, he suffered a lurch in his guts and felt his treacherous muscles shrinking.

Swilling the fear back down his throat with a conscious effort of will, Finch nevertheless remained frozen as the figure crossed the road, passing within yards of Finch's car, and with that acuity of hearing lent by profound unease, he heard the soft, measured pad of footsteps in the sepulchral silence.

The small part of Finch's mind that was still under the command of his police training was collecting details, although detail itself was scarce. The long cloak created a line as smooth and featureless as that of an origami figurine, even where it shifted in motion, although he couldn't help but notice the man's size; he was easily six feet tall, and probably more.

Finch's gaze at last came to rest upon what little he could see of the mask between the obstruction of both the fog and the clean crescent shadow of the hat brim, which amounted to a lascivious Cheshire cat smile and a glistening, sallow cheek. As he watched, the mask tilted, and one deep-set eye flashed for a split second, a facsimile of a conspiratorial wink. Then, turning on his heel, the figure paced out the remaining distance and drifted around the corner.

Finch groaned softly as he released a breath he'd been holding, quite unconsciously, for several minutes, and considered his next move. He knew that he'd set out without a plan of action, compelled only by a desire to uncover the truth, a desire so powerful that it was nauseating. Now, with the reek of prey in his nostrils, he was caught at bay in the midst of a vicious battle between instinct and self-preservation.

The only problem, he knew, was that instinct – that age old instinct of both dogs and coppers to chase what ran – would triumph. Deciding to pre-empt it, Finch wrapped his coat around him, still feeling the pressure of the bulky pistol against his side, and climbed out of the car.

Pressing his shoulder to the brickwork, he leant forward and peered cautiously around the corner. This side street was even narrower, hemmed in with London's trademark claustrophobic architecture and, what was worse, swathed in ill-intentioned gloom due to a lack of streetlights. He glanced up, noting that several were out.

The fog was thickening even as he moved forward and, as he edged through it, Finch realised that he'd lost sight of his quarry. He was surrounded by very low, breathless sounds; the squeak and shift of saplings, weighted down with condensation, a faint jingle that might have been the bell on the collar of a passing cat and, some distance away, a muted, repetitive click, as if someone had left a door or window unlatched.

Some prompting of a sixth sense had him heading for this last sound, although he was unfamiliar with the area and had no idea what his steps might be carrying him toward. He halted along the way, grasping a lamp-post for support, feeling the mist coagulating on his throat and in his twitching lungs.

As he straightened up, Finch pulled his hand up to his face, conscious of the water prickling there, and it was then that his laboured breathing ground to a halt. His palm was scattered with pinpoint droplets of water, each rounded and perfect, but within each speck there was a rainbow. Not a rainbow as he'd always understood it, but a rainbow composed of the colours of fire; scarlet, vermilion, orange and umber, shifting and scintillating without let.

Biting into his lip, struggling not to whimper from fear and confusion, he rubbed his palm on his coat, drying the dampness. When he raised his hand once more, the firelight was gone, and with it half the knowledge that it had ever been there to begin with – although Finch had, though not a visual memory, a remembrance of the senseless glitter of it.

He propped himself against the lamp-post until his heart stopped fluttering against his sternum, and then took several careful breaths of sticky air. He studied his palm once more, but the bewildering aurorae hadn't returned.

The staccato click of the open door reached his ears once more, and Finch headed towards it, still feeling a faint tremor in his legs. After a few more steps, he reached out and encountered a smooth, glazed red brick façade. His mind grabbed for a conclusion and he stepped back, craning his neck up, but the familiar symbol of the London Underground wasn't there. He had nothing but a blind steel door, buffeted by a faint breeze, creeping to and fro and bouncing every now and again on its latch.

Finch turned his head very slowly, staring away from the slice of darkness behind that door, seeking any halfway plausible distraction from the idea of walking through it. At the end of the street he could see the occasional passing car beneath the comforting glow of Piccadilly, but even as he watched, the lights flickered and faded, dimming to a ghoulish green glow that reached down his throat and twisted his guts one-handed. Finch staggered back, feeling his shoulders make contact with the door behind him, which swung open. Robbed of any further excuse, he turned and blundered through it.

A distant, stentorian roar assaulted him at the same moment as a violent updraught whipped at his coat. He jerked, profoundly disoriented in the eldritch gloom and this racketing, buffeting noise, and grabbed for the gun out of sheer reflex. Only when he caught his finger tightening around the trigger did Finch force himself to back down, finally understanding that this was nothing more than a passing train, somewhere far below his feet.

Achieving a sense of relative calm in the wake of this realisation, he cast a glance around him for the first time, seeing that he'd stepped into a cramped ante-chamber which served as nothing more than the landing for a narrow, musty set of stone steps, passing through curls of dust and clogged, haunted cobwebs to a feeble wedge of light.

Finch descended these, trying to avoid the webs and whatever muck and grime had accumulated in them over the years, and still keeping the gun in one loosely curled fist. Reaching the bottom of the steps, he turned and found himself at the top of a deep, cold well, lined with a rattling spiral staircase.

_Eric_...

Finch jerked back from the railing as if it had sprouted claws, feeling his breath whining through a throat that appeared to have constricted spasmodically. That oiled whisper still echoed in his head, but he had no idea if it had ever been the product of anything _but_ his imagination.

Creeping back to the staircase on feet muffled by a thick layer of dust, he peered over the edge, trying to outstare the gulf below. Each curve of the staircase was lit by a mildewed emergency lamp, but this still left several uncompromising pockets of shadow, any one of which could have sheltered the phantom he'd pursued this far. Hefting the gun for what little comfort it was still providing, Finch started down the stairs.

He was two turns from the bottom when another capricious spiral of wind came shrieking out of the depths, ripping at his hair and clothes. He backed away from the edge of the stairwell, but it was then that the paltry wall lamps winked out; not one by one, but in perfect unison, replacing the weak, sick glow with a darkness so absolute that Finch could all but feeling it sucking at his eyes, even as he delved into his pocket for the torch he'd brought with him.

He was about to switch it on when he heard another serpentine whisper. Just as before, it crawled out of the deep and seemed to etch itself upon his cortex without passing through his ears.

_Yesterday upon the stair_..._I met a man who wasn't there_...

Taking one more step down, fighting every craven instinct that told him that he should be running, Finch swallowed ferociously and tried to breathe slowly, not wanting to drown out external sounds with his own harsh panting. Once again, he thought about switching on the torch, but ten years of training, backed up by reserves of basic common sense, told him that in exquisite darkness, this would do nothing but advertise his position. He pocketed it once more and reached out, unseeing, for the handrail.

_He wasn't there again today_...

Without warning, the cold rail twisted under Finch's palm, and in the frozen fraction of a second before he flung himself from the bottom step with a thin and tepid yelp, he felt fur beneath his curled fingers. Thick, warm, oily fur, rough and wiry to the touch. Staggering back, ramming his clenched fist up against his chest as if he'd been gripping white-hot steel, he backed up against the grimy wall and shuddered there like a palsied racehorse.

_I wish that man would go away_...

It took every drop of courage he possessed for Finch to step out into the unfettered darkness once more and reach out for the handrail. Biting his lip, he placed his cold, sweat-glossed palm to the metal. Feeling nothing but bare iron and rough speckles of rust under his touch, he groaned softly and then removed his hand. As he did so, he heard laughter.

It would have been better, somehow, if it had sounded crazed, or unhinged, or even shrill, but it was none of these things. The tunnel before him reverberated to the tune of a faint but warm and good-humoured chuckle, which was already dwindling before he'd stopped to analyse it to any degree, and he was then left alone but for the steady drip and spatter of water somewhere up ahead.

Even as Finch advanced on the gaping maw of the passageway, tightening his grip on the gun until it left white, bloodless spots on his knuckles, the lamps on the staircase throbbed back into life. It was pure, unbound instinct that turned his head towards the sudden resurgence of light, and the same instinct that urged him to follow that light back up, to return to the overworld and give up a chase that was rapidly descending into madness in the dark – but he overruled it.

"No," he muttered to himself, setting foot beneath the arch. "_No_. I know you're down here, you bastard."

He hadn't gone five steps when a repugnant smell curved out of the shadows ahead and gripped him around the throat as if it had a physical presence all its own. The splash of falling water was louder now, the sound an immanent force. Finch coughed reflexively and brought his free hand up to shield his mouth and nose from the foul reek, and with his next footfall he realised that the floor of the tunnel was a sticky delta of stagnant streams.

Hopping over the vile mess in his path, he paced to the end of the tunnel and reached a junction. The passage narrowed here, and with what remained of the light he'd left behind him, Finch could see the outline of stark white tiles, cracked in many places and all blotched with murky stains. There were various posters and signs affixed to the wall in front of him, but he couldn't read them in the velvet gloom and, in any event, most were scoured in age old filth.

While he was trying to decide which way to turn, and realising that both turnings led into a quagmire of shadows and stench, another blast of cold air buffeted him from the passage to his left and, this time, it was accompanied by an otherworldly scream that scratched across his nerves like broken glass.

Through half-closed eyes he saw the stroboscopic flash of the thundering train, but though the lights dwindled and died, the screech persisted, and in the end, Finch slammed his hands over his ears in an attempt to shut out what sounded like the hectoring shrieks of a murder of crows. This achieved nothing; if anything, the cacophony seemed to leap toward a crescendo, and he dropped to his knees in the dust, head bowed, eyes screwed tight, so much so that fireworks darted across his retinas.

As he shivered on the floor, blinking to try to adjust his eyes to darkness so near to absolute that he knew it would give his vision no quarter at all, Finch felt another breath of air. It wasn't the wash of an approaching train, but a warm puff across his brow, as if something had moved past him. He'd barely time to register this when something stroked his clammy cheek, something like the wing of a bird, and then was gone. In time with its passing he heard several light footsteps, and his stomach lurched.

Reflex reached down his arm and into his pocket, and he dragged the torch out and flicked it on. Swinging the beam up and out, he stared at the narrow section of platform that he could see, hemmed in by the archway at the end of the passage.

The ring of light picked out very little. There was some sort of poster on the far wall, beyond the tracks, but it had been shredded by decades of backwash and left pulpy and stringy in places where the roof of the tunnel had wept upon it during the rains far above.

Realising that the raucous chattering in his ears had ceased, Finch hauled himself up, one hand braced against the wall in spite of its gritty, filthy coating. He took three steps towards the arch, testing his recalcitrant legs for signs of incipient collapse, and then edged around the corner and onto the platform.

As he did so, the noisome, foetid cavern erupted into life around him as if it had been charged. Finch sucked in a horrified, whistling breath as the walls of the tunnel flared and pulsed, ran with quicksilver streamers of electricity so fierce that it passed through white into viridian and then into crackling, furious violet. He backed away, surrendering to an inborn instinct in the face of such violent disarray around him, but as his shoulders struck an unyielding barrier, he understood that the way back was lost.

The light behind the wild lightning cascade was so brilliant that it was verging on painful. Finch dropped the torch and the gun, hearing both clatter to the floor, but with only half an ear. He ducked his chin into his chest and turned to the cold wall behind him, only to find it possessed by the same savage firestorm.

He was perched on the precipice between the plateau of bewilderment and the canyon of abject terror, and as he heard the scrape of boots from behind him, he penetrated the defences of his last reserves of courage and, tapping it straight to the bottom, swung around to face the creature he'd pursued into the abyss. When he did, he bit into his tongue hard enough to fill his mouth with sour blood.

The shade was standing less than a yard away, still smiling his perfect and perfectly inscrutable smile. The cloak shifted and curved at the hem in some errant breeze that Finch couldn't feel, but as he cast his gaze around the man's outline, seemingly sliced from the stone of the vaulted cave, he saw the aura, and watched it flower.

The stranger's halo was dead. Not black, like his clothing, but dead nonetheless. In sickening contrast to the sparkle and shine of everything around, this aura was a turbulent pyroclastic curtain of smoke shot with veins of sullen crimson light, though which he was reaching out one shining glove which crawled with skeins of the same frightening dark ectoplasm. With eyes that now felt as though they were about to burn out of his skull, Finch saw that the limb left a delicate procession of after-images in the fractured air behind it.

Cold fingers closed around Finch's neck before he could react, before he could even _think_ to react. He twisted his head, or at least tried to, but the grip on his throat was both gentle and authoritarian at once. With an effort of will that left his head spinning, he grabbed for the gloved wrist, trying to break its hold, but beneath the soft black brocade his fingers encountered curved lines of firm muscle, as smooth and implacable as marble.

"This isn't real..." he said. He meant to speak clearly and decisively, but heard his own voice emerge as a weak, tired sigh. The ivory features shifted without seeming to move, and the face was suffused with something that he could only read as being amused pity.

"You do yet taste some subtilties o' the isle that will not let you believe things certain," was the response, cut into the air in a welter of coloured curves. Finch struggled feebly once more and then, finding that the hand around his throat had eased its grasp a little, he wrenched his head around and stared into the one sphere of darkness in the whole of that searing, actinic cave.

From out of the void surged a whispering, tumbling grey tide, pouring over the edge of the platform and struggling with itself as it approached.

"Welcome, my friends all," whispered the mask.

* * *

><p>Gordon rounded the corner into Down Street, dragged on his way by Nelson, who had his glistening nose pressed to the pavement and was pulling at the lead like a husky. As he did so, he realised with a terrifying lurch that he knew exactly where V had gone.<p>

He reached the exterior of the old station and stopped dead, head tipped back, throat working furiously. If there had been anyone to see, they would have remarked, if only to themselves, on the peculiarity of the tableau: Gordon, as still as a sculpture in the middle of a sinuous midnight mist, eyes half closed and showing nothing but glazed whites; and Nelson, collar socked tight up against his throat, whining through wet lips, every muscle vibrating and transmitting that vibration down to a ramrod stiff tail.

Gordon blinked twice and then, stepping past the dog, placed a palm on the freezing cold door and pushed. It shivered back on its hinges, squealing plaintively, and he stepped through into the dusty shadows beyond.

As Gordon reached the top of the spiral staircase, he was almost jerked off his feet as Nelson lunged for the stairs, whiskers pricking and hackles furiously erect. There was no growl, no snarl, no canine noise whatsoever save for a stertorous rumble in the dog's chest as he fought to escape the lead and race down the steps. Alarmed by this metamorphosis, Gordon tugged back on the lead a little, although this put no more than the tiniest dent of restraint in Nelson's savagery, and then they both set off, down and down.

Gordon was upon the bottom step of the spiral staircase when he heard a thin, piercing wail echo from the murky tunnel up ahead. He froze, hearing several shades and harmonics of naked terror in that cry, but Nelson, not given to such introspection, dived forward once more until he stood at the end of the lead, almost dragging Gordon off his feet. This time, the dog launched a spittle-clogged snarl from between his teeth.

Stumbling down the last step, Gordon wrapped the lead around his fist in a desperate attempt at keeping the dog in check, and then plunged into the curved shadows in the mouth of the passageway.

The stench of the rancid water hit him hard, but he inhaled no more than half a mouthful before he coughed it back out and held his breath, plunging through the slime on the floor and through the miasma, taking a small taste of the air before starting to breathe once more. Glancing around, ears straining for any further sound at all, he heard the echo of a train bulleting down a tunnel far away, its subtle growl lost in the reverberation from the walls and ceiling.

With the sound of the wheels already fading, Gordon picked another sound out of the air, another noise just as plaintive and as organic as the first, although this was more of a muffled whimper, granted several conflicting echoes by the curve of the walls. In spite of the crawling at the back of his neck, he rounded the corner and stepped out onto the platform ahead.

The shadows were thicker here, in spite of the dim, lurking lights around the curve of the tunnel, and there was a vicious, malodorous taste to the air, filled as it was with coarse dust whipped up by the endlessly shifting air currents. At last, his hearing volunteered a final detail: somewhere close by, there was a rustling and a chattering.

Nelson had stopped growling, stopped fighting the restraint of the lead, and simply stood foursquare at Gordon's side, panting harshly. Gordon set one foot out in front of him, and then heard something click and scrape against his toe; something metallic. He stooped and stretched out a hand, sliding it forward gingerly. His fingers closed around what felt like a pocket torch, and he pointed his arm out into the gloom and thumbed the switch.

The beam was weak but wide, and cut a broad circle out of the platform and the mouth of the tunnel. In the paltry light, Gordon saw a pale hand rise over the edge of the platform, grasp at nothing but air, and sink back down once more. In the few seconds of stunned mental quietude that followed this horrifying flash-frame image, he realised that the shuffle and susurrus he could hear was rats - more rats than he dared imagine.

Somewhere in Gordon's fear-clenched brain, a trip switch dropped into place. Reaching down at his side, he unclipped Nelson's lead and whispered, "Go". The dog launched himself into the air as if spring-loaded, and covered the distance to the tracks in one bound. Gordon watched Nelson plunge into the seething mêlée beneath the platform, and even as he started forward, his stomach contracted with loathing as he heard the rats begin to scream.

Gordon gripped the torch between his teeth and dropped over the edge, landing up to his ankles in litter, muck and wriggling rats that were already engaged in a violent battle to escape the furious dog. Nelson stood astride a bulky, huddled shape and was lunging left and right, sinking his teeth into fur and tails, shaking his head and flinging ripped, bloodied bodies aside. His muzzle was plastered with gore and his whiskers decorated with scarlet beads.

Putting out a hand to steady himself as he moved forward another inch, Gordon laid his palm on the nearside rail. Beneath the rough coat, he could feel an insistent buzz, deep in the steel, which grew in frequency as he slid his hand up and away from the rail once more, his mind suddenly a cocoon of urgency, understanding that a train was approaching.

Plucking the torch from his mouth, Gordon hurled it aside. It skittered across the floor, casting wild, deformed glances of light over the scene as it spun and, finally, came to rest against the far wall. He braced himself, then bent and wrapped both arms around the dog's waist and lifted him up. Nelson was a struggling parcel in Gordon's arms, and he gasped with the effort as he heaved the dog up and back onto the platform. Nelson skidded on the concrete, claws squealing, and prepared to dive back into the morass of rats.

"_Stay!_" yelled Gordon, his voice high and cracked with terror, and the dog shuffled back, whining. Gordon turned back, hearing as he did so the mutter of the oncoming train, which was still some way down the tunnel but gaining speed on the incline.

The last of the rats pelted into the tunnel, driven both by madness at the scent of a predator and by their instinctive reaction to the approach of a train. Beneath their flight, Gordon peered into the triangle of shadow beneath the edge of the platform and found the outline of a man, still alive, but mumbling incoherencies to himself. Ahead of him, he heard wheels screeching on a curve, and then the tunnel was glazed with light as the train rounded the last bend and bore down on the station.

Bare reflex galvanised Gordon. He crouched and slipped a hand beneath Finch's shoulder, pulling him into a sitting position and grabbing him beneath the arms. Straightening up, Gordon dragged the semi-conscious policeman up into an embrace. He felt a vein twitch in his temple as he did so, and wondered how this slightly built man could be so heavy. Gordon hissed the last of his breath between his teeth and heaved, dragging Finch up and onto the platform, shoving him to safety.

It was too much, too much by half. A weak shudder gripped Gordon's muscles, ran down his spine and into his legs, which folded beneath him. His ears were filled with the savage bellow of the train, and he had no more power than to raise his hand, shielding his eyes from the dazzling dance of the headlights as they assaulted him.

Time now slowed to a sticky, languorous crawl, and Gordon experienced a flicker of a moment in which, sagging against the rail, paralysed with exhaustion and fear, he wondered if his death might just be kind enough to arrive instantaneously as he was dashed onto the front of the train.

A hand descended into the light and clamped around Gordon's wrist, followed by another, which closed around his forearm, and his shoulder exploded with agony as he was dragged up. Finding one last scrap of strength born of animal instinct, he shoved his free hand down against the edge of the concrete slab and kicked up from the rail, tumbling onto the platform, pulling in a rough breath as the train slammed past him, inches from the tips of his toes. The hands lifted him clear and set him down without ceremony, and he gasped as he hit the unsympathetic floor with a jarring thump.

For long seconds, the train filled every sense he possessed; he sprawled on the platform and drew tortured breaths as it blazed past, lighted windows flashing. Then, just as it had arrived, it plunged back into the tunnel on the far side and left the scene in darkness once more.

Gordon turned as best his prone position would allow and found himself facing a pair of glossy black boots. In some way that he couldn't comprehend, he read an air of satisfaction about them, as if this sensation was so powerful and so primal that it was being directed to every single part of this man's anatomy.

Pushing himself up from the floor, coercing painfully stretched muscles into some semblance of organised motion, Gordon staggered upright and brought his gaze to bear on V's dark and unresponsive eyes. In the backwash of light from the fallen torch, he could see nothing but the sallow curves of the mask, and though some old Pavlovian reaction insisted that this should have him backing away, he understood that he was too exhausted to be anything but brutally honest, both with himself and with V.

"It ends here," said Gordon. He'd expected his voice to emerge as a painful exhalation, but to his surprise he heard himself enunciating perfectly into the space between them. "No more games," he went on. "I'm tired of it all, V. I've done this your way, I followed you the way you knew I would, but I'm finished. Now _let me go_."

"Aye, that I will," said V, "and I'll be wise hereafter, and seek for grace."

"Caliban," responded Gordon, automatically, although he found room on his face for a weary, sad smile. He watched the mask nod shortly.

"I'll trouble you no further," said V, and bowed low. The gesture was courtly and his voice was steeped in sincerity, and in the midst of such degraded surroundings, Gordon found it all faintly fantastic. He maintained a sober silence until those empty eye sockets met his stare once more, and then drew a lungful of stale air.

"You've promised that before," he said, without irony.

"You are right," said V, quite evenly, "but this time, the decision is mine. You are correct. It ends here. My business from this moment on is neither your preserve nor your concern."

"Not quite," breathed Gordon, and he turned to nod at the crumpled figure of Finch, lying on the platform in what Gordon could only hope was nothing more than a faint. He noticed that Nelson had trotted over to the detective and was sniffing gently at his shoulder. "What did you do to him?"

The question rang like a bronze bell in the claustrophobic air. V's head dipped to one side, as if he were contemplating a difficult puzzle.

"I laced his coffee with LSD. It should muddy the waters somewhat," he said, at last. "Even so, he is still a threat..." With this, V dropped a hand to his belt and allowed it to rest on the hilt of a knife. Gordon shifted without making any kind of conscious decision to do so, placing himself between V and Finch.

"No," he said, firmly. "He doesn't deserve to die, and I won't let it happen. Now do what you have to."

There was no reply. Instead, V looked down at his own hand and lifted it precisely from the hilt, folding his fingers around as he did so and clasping his hands together in front of him. Gordon, understanding that in some silent manner, V had signalled agreement, unwound his rigid muscles.

"You should go, Gordon," said V, stepping back as he did so until even the mask faded into shadow, leaving nothing but its highlights and points and a serpentine glint in the pit of each eye. "Mr. Finch and I have matters to discuss."

Gordon remained where he was. His throat surged, and he battled with the urge to avert his eyes, but won out over it, even if only just. He heard a gentle, reproachful sigh.

"You have my word," V told him. "I will not harm him. Go in peace with that assurance."

In the temporary silence that followed, Gordon swore that he could hear a subtle peal of guttural laughter from some distant corner; but perhaps, he thought, it was only the warped echo of a slowing train. Finally, feeling as if the right moment had arrived, he turned his head away and snapped his fingers at Nelson. The dog's head jerked up, and he lumbered over to Gordon's side, still licking smears of rat blood from his lips.

"Something's changed," he said, still staring into the middle distance. "Either the world is different now, or I am, I don't know which. But does it really matter?"

"Perhaps not," was the reply. Gordon closed his eyes briefly, nodding, and then turned and left the platform, with Nelson at his heel.

When all trace of their footsteps had faded, V snorted softly and bent to retrieve the torch from the corner. Holding it in his gaze, he hesitated for a second before folding it in the hem of his cloak and wiping it down, careful to smooth over every crease in the aluminium. Then, switching it off, he pocketed it and turned towards Finch.

"The hour's now come," he whispered, smiling curiously in the dark. "The very minute bids thee ope thine ear; obey and be attentive."

V's footsteps were drowned beneath the howl of another passing train as he approached the slumbering Finch.


	17. Resolutions

"Art thou afear'd?"

Finch's eyes clicked open and were filled, all at once, with the sparkle of a new-laid frost. He channelled his sluggish thoughts as far as the appreciation of a cold, pitiless surface beneath him, but no further, and willing his limbs to move seemed so far beyond his capacity that the mere idea of it slipped from his grasp like a carp.

All he could do was to turn his gaze from side to side, his eyes moving on small and tentative tracks. His peripheral vision told him that he was surrounded by candlelight but, whatever else reflection may have done to that light, it had bleached the warmth from it until it glanced from the walls and ceiling like cracked ice. The room he lay in was little more than a cluttered crawlspace, and everything about it was a pale, shining grey, as if he'd woken up inside a rain cloud.

"Be not afear'd," a melodious, curiously reassuring voice told him, from somewhere far outside his line of sight. "The isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not."

This sally was followed by a haunting arpeggio. There was the chatter of small teeth, overlaid with the whistle of keen air in narrow byways. There was a breathless, broken laugh and a sharp inhalation, mingled with one another. The scratch of what sounded like steel gliding on stone carried the animal rhythm, and then Finch's ears were plugged with silence once more.

Presently, a shape wavered over him, looking as if it were seen through glass-clear, running water. He blinked, and the image solidified, though it was none the less unsettling for that.

The figure was wreathed in a hooded scarlet shroud so vivid that it all but faded out the quicksilver wall behind it. The robe was loose, so much so that it was impossible to divine the slightest of human curves to the body beneath it, and there was nothing beneath the cowl but shadow and air.

_No, wait_, Finch told himself. There was something there in the dark after all. Blinking his aching eyes once more, he settled upon two glints in the infinite gloom. _Blue_, he added. _They're blue. They're beautiful_.

He checked himself after what felt like an hour's worth of consideration of the delirious thought that had just fluttered through his head and, finally managing to separate his parched, cracked lips from each other, he spoke up.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked, huskily. "Where is this?"

"Questions!" cried the voice from the empty cowl, with something approaching merriment. "Who, where, what, why? Every line cast from your mouth ends in a hook, Eric." So saying, the figure stretched out its hand and described an artful curve in the air at the point of one elegant finger. Finch, watching that hand with a breed of detachment and apprehension, had a moment to study its valleys of fresh, livid scar tissue before it dipped and closed soft around his chin.

"Since they seem to comfort you," the cowl continued, "I will employ a hook of my own. What is it that you hope to catch?"

"The truth," mumbled Finch. He closed his eyes – the action seemed to take an age to complete – and opened them again just as languidly. When he did so, he could see slight tendrils of pale pink emerging from the creases in the robe, and some sense he hadn't known he possessed interpreted it as the manifestation of the creature's amusement at his reply.

"The truth, my dear Detective Sergeant, won't be snared like that," it said, as if it were a teacher called to correct a bright but recalcitrant pupil. "Securing the truth requires infinite patience. Wait, be still, and it will come up on you of its own free will. If you truly believe the quarry is worth the catching of it, then you'll heed my advice."

"You're the one who killed those people, aren't you," said Finch, not a question but a bland statement, while engaging his febrile muscles in a battle to rise from his slumped position. He was gaining little ground until solicitous hands took him and helped him to sit up against the wall, which he felt crackling at his back.

"I killed footpads, cowards, wastrels and traitors. I stole from a thief," responded the voice, perfectly smoothly. "If this is all the truth you were seeking, you scarcely needed to pursue me to find it. It was carved into your mind all along, beside that small part of you that still adheres to justice, not law."

Finch tested the brutally sore muscles at the back of his neck by looking up at the shape standing over him. As he did so, he realised that while part of his brain was stumbling and tripping over the peculiarities of everything he was seeing and hearing, to another fragment – one he wanted desperately to deny – it all made perfect sense.

"So when do I get the truth?" he asked. The last word snagged in his throat, and he coughed mightily before freeing it.

"You are not ready yet," was the answer. "I believe you to be a part of the process if not part of the plan and, believe me, your time will come. You, I and the human race have much to accomplish before that day, but..." it stooped, and the cowl bore in on his pale, sweat-damp face, so close that he could taste warm, sweet breath, "...you now have a choice before you, because choice is a human birthright."

With this, Finch looked down as something freezing was slipped into his hand, and dim remembrance kicked at his mind as he stared and puzzled. The weapon weighed his palm down, even more so than he remembered, but as the apparition took several silent steps backward, he directed a command down his arm, flicked the laser sight on and raised the gun. If his hand shook ever so slightly, he ignored it, and lifted the barrel until a single, violent firespot lingered on the figure's chest.

"All that I ask," it said, "is that you make your decision armed with this knowledge: I alone can lead you to the truth you've sought all your life. Not about me, but about you, the world, and your place in it, if you'll only have the necessary forbearance. However," it said, and now that voice was nothing more than a murmur, "you may, if you wish, cut me down now and take me in for a prize. Know only that you cannot claim both."

This time, the tremor in Finch's hand was unmistakeable. He tried his best to keep the sight steady but, at length, the gun sagged and he allowed it to drop back into his lap with a harsh sigh raked from the depths of his lungs.

"What are you?" he asked, desperately. In response, the creature stepped toward him and lifted one hand, turning it palm out. As if this gesture had at last snapped the bonds of some dire enchantment, Finch found that he was able to struggle to his feet, although with no grace at all. He slammed his back against the wall and exhaled in trepidation as that twisted hand rested upon his shoulder.

"Don't you know me?" the voice insisted.

"You're..." Finch paused, and snatched at the only memory, as strange as it was, that was now left in his mind; a memory that had burrowed insidiously into his mind when he was a child. "You're the Red Death," he said, weakly.

"Oh, I'm much more than that," was the dark response. The hood angled away, just an inch or two, as if the animus within was growing impatient at Finch's bewilderment. Withdrawing, the carmine robe turned its back on him. He felt a minor twitch in the hand that still clasped the gun to his slick palm, but no more than that.

"I'm the shadow beneath the bed, Eric," breathed the figure. "I'm the monster in the cellar and the banshee on the roof."

"I'm the poltergeist and the bogeyman," it went on, raising both scar-tangled hands to the cowl.

"I am everything that you've forgotten to fear," it said, drawing back the hood and swinging around. Finch's eyes flared, and he crammed his knuckles between his teeth to muffle a piteous whimper as this damaged nightmare drew closer to him.

"I am Setekh, Baal, Cthulhu and Samael. I am entropy. I _am _chaos..."

The creature struck like a viper, seeming to move without moving, and was suddenly gripping the nape of his neck. He struggled briefly and poorly as cold fingers dipped into his flesh and found vital points, and then, without further warning, there was nothing more to see, feel or hear.

* * *

><p>...<em>sometimes a thousand twangling instruments will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices that, if I then had waked after long sleep, will make me sleep again<em>...

..._and then, in dreaming, the clouds methought would open and show riches ready to drop upon me that, when I waked, I cried to dream again_...

Finch sat forward, clutching at the tail of this small, dolorous speech even as his face was bathed in honey-coloured sunlight and even as he shied away from this and blinked the sting from his eyes. The last of these words slithered from his grasp as he tried to repeat them, leaving nothing but a vacuum into which his confusion poured.

Raising his hands before his face, he studied them as if they were alien artefacts. There was a needle in his brain, some piercing but elusive memory of clear, cold flames on those hands, but like the seductive whisper that had woken him, it submerged itself and slipped away into the depths once more. All he was left with was the remembrance of a clouded gaze fixed upon his own, a gaze both pitiless and pitying at one and the same time.

Wrenching a groan from his beleaguered chest, Finch slowly turned his head, finally taking in his surroundings. Though the morning was brighter than a pearl and the skies that signal shade of winter blue tinted with gold, a penetratingly cold, razor-edged breeze was scything in through the open window of the car and encouraging prickles of condensation in the sweat at the nape of his neck. Somewhere, close by but unseen, a robin was piercing the uncaring dawn with a series of sharp alarm calls.

Moving carefully, as if hurrying might widen the cracks in a reality upon which he had nothing but the most precarious footing in any case, he pulled open his coat and found his fingers closing around the grip of the pistol, secure in its holster.

_Where did you think it would be_, he asked himself, gingerly, neither expecting nor receiving an answer. Instead, he picked the car keys up and stared at them, turning them to and fro to play spears of reflected light over his face. After a time, reaching the conclusion that he didn't trust himself to drive right at that point, Finch wound up the window, pocketed the keys and got out of the car.

As he did so, a stray bullet of recollection smacked into his brain. _Rats,_ it told him. _There were rats. _He remembered the pinpricks of claws and the rip of yellow teeth; remembered suffering bites and scratches wherever the beasts had found flesh. He brought hesitant fingers up to his face, seeking marks, or pain, or blood, but there was nothing to be found.

Turning his face up to the iridescent sky, he bathed in light as he struggled with the rest of his fractured memory. _I alone can lead you to the truth_..._I'm the shadow beneath the bed. I'm the monster in the cellar and the banshee on the roof._

"But _who_ are you?" muttered Finch.

_Every line cast from your mouth ends in a hook, Eric_...s_ecuring the truth requires infinite patience. Wait, be still, and it will come up on you of its own free will. _

"Then I'll wait," he responded, a little louder, "but I'll find you. One day. I'll find you." That said, he dropped his head, turned and walked away from the sunrise.

* * *

><p>Finch was staring out across the Serpentine when McLennan found him, coat drawn tight against a violent chill that the dawn had failed to subdue. For a while, both men stood in silence, studying the pale golden cast over the water, the somnolent shimmer disturbed only briefly as a flight of ducks swung in to land upon it. Finally, McLennan cleared his throat gently.<p>

"I made your excuses yesterday," he said, evenly, his breath condensing in front of him. "Don't worry about that. Are you all right? You sounded...disturbed on the phone."

"Have you ever had a dream," said Finch, without turning his head, "that changed everything you thought you knew?" McLennan pinched the bridge of his nose, suddenly seeming very weary.

"Finch, I know we've both been under a lot of pressure lately," he said, vaguely, "but I really don't think..."

"Just a question, sir, that's all," said Finch, still gazing at the nodding willows on the far bank of the lake.

"If I can't understand the question, then how are you going to understand the answer?" asked McLennan. This time, the sergeant's head jerked around, and McLennan took a step back. Finch's face was a pale, frozen mask, his eyes hollow, ringed with shadow.

"I didn't say I was looking for an answer. I only wanted to say it aloud," said Finch, and turned back towards the glass-calm lake, hunching his shoulders and sliding his hands into his pockets. Beside him, McLennan frowned helplessly.

"Finch..." he said, and then stopped, a little unsure of how to proceed. Clearing his throat slightly, he regrouped. "Is there something you're not telling me?" he asked. "I know we haven't known each other very long," he went on, still hesitant, "but you're a damned good copper. Anyone with half a mind can see that. The problem I have, right here and now, is that I have to choose between what's best for the force and what's best for you. I don't want to have to make that distinction. You understand?"

Silence ensued, in which McLennan found his gaze drawn out across the lapping, corpse-cold Serpentine in search of whatever it was that Finch was studying with such eerie, detached intensity. After a while, he reached the conclusion that whatever it was, it wasn't in the lake; it was behind the man's eyes, and rooted in a far darker, colder place.

"I should get back," he said, awkwardly. "It's not as if the Commissioner isn't watching me closely enough already." He paused, still waiting for a response of any kind, but Finch didn't even stir as a stiff breeze whipped at him. Eventually, quite out of words, McLennan backed away.

Finch's fingers closed on something small, right at the bottom of his coat pocket. Turning it around, pinching it tight, he withdrew his hand and brought the object up to his face, where it glimmered defiantly and fired rainbow-tinted lances of light into his eye as he moved it around and around. Drawing in a short breath, he called out.

"Sir?" he said, closing his hand. McLennan, some way down the path, pulled up and turned back.

"Yes?"

_Not now_, something whispered, not in his mind, but over his shoulder. _Your time will come._ He lowered his hand once more, shaking his head gently.

"Never mind," he said, his voice flat.

The minutes ticked past. Finch remained by the margin of the lake until McLennan had disappeared, and stood as still as a blind-eyed mannequin for quite some time after that. The sun, as weak as milk as it disappeared behind a diaphanous veil of cloud, cast no more than the suggestion of his shadow onto the water. Finally, uncurling his fingers, he drew back his arm and let fly.

The diamond glinted just once as it reached the zenith of its arc, and Finch watched, quite without passion, as it plunged into the embrace of the lake.

* * *

><p>Tendrils of silence crept through the wine cellar on cats' feet, thwarted only by the occasional muted thunder of a passing Underground train and, just here, by the subtle hiss of a candle wick wrapped in an amber flame.<p>

The light from this flame, though it threw a warm circle about itself, didn't do any more than hint at the figure that remained, perhaps deliberately, outside its sphere of influence. It was as if the candlelight was, though necessary in this subterranean chamber, something of a blasphemy.

The only other light in this vaulted nave came from the panel of a jukebox in a far corner, which was spilling out a haunting refrain. Lulled by this, the figure stretched out a hand and lifted the head of the luxuriant crimson rose that stood before it. The bloom, quite alone in such alien surroundings, picked up what little light it could and bore a gentle glimmer on the velvet of its curved petals.

The figure half turned as, somewhere behind it, a door clicked open. Smiling gently, even though this couldn't be seen, it waited.

V stepped through the narrow arch and into the cellar proper and, all at once, paused at the sight of the lit candle where he'd expected darkness. Dropping one hand to his belt, he drew a dagger quite noiselessly, and advanced upon the flame.

"I must say," said the voice from beyond the circle of candlelight, "it makes a change to see _you_ surprised, for once." V froze, disconcerted, as Gordon slipped into view, wearing a small, irregular smile. At last, the blade was replaced in its sheath, and V straightened up, studying his unexpected guest.

Gordon was still clad in the tuxedo he'd been wearing the previous evening, though it was now in a sorry state; wrinkled, smeared with grime from the train tracks and spattered with rats' blood along the cuffs. His tie hung askew and his shirt was, he knew, probably quite beyond saving. Aware that he was under close examination, Gordon glanced down self-depreciatingly.

"This feels like the morning after the strangest party in human history," he observed, _apropos_ of nothing in particular, looking back up and cocking his head at V, who let out a small laugh.

"Our revels now are ended," said V, and Gordon couldn't help but hear a warmth in his tone; a warmth that had never been there before. "These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air. But tell me," he added, "what brings you here?"

"A resolution," said Gordon, a shade cryptically. "There's that, and more simply, I didn't think this should be concluded in any less than civilised surroundings and under any less than civil conditions. My state of dishevelment aside," he added, with good humour.

"I understand," said V. "Are you well?"

"Not long ago, that would have been an absurd question," replied Gordon, "but now...? I feel vibrant. I should feel wretched, but I don't. I wonder if that's because dancing with death is the best reminder of how alive we are?"

"No," said V, very gently. "Human life has value to us not _in spite_ of death, but _because_ of it. It's the daily struggle against the inevitable that makes all of this seem worth our while." Gordon, after a thought, nodded sagely.

"What happened to that policeman?" he asked, changing tack.

"I..." V began, and then hesitated momentarily. "I know that you believe my actions to have been impulsive, Gordon, but I have done as best I could. Detective Sergeant Finch is no longer a problem, but..."

A long, crowded moment went past in silence before Gordon cocked his head quizzically. "But what?" he asked, feeling his stomach tighten with apprehension.

"Every deck of cards has a Joker," V finished, and turned his head aside for a second. When he resumed his study, he went on. "Do you know the history of the Joker?"

Gordon thought for a second, struggling to work out where he was being led. It had been a long, crippling night, his skull felt as if it were stuffed with feathers, and he faltered, shaking his head at last.

"The Fool," said V, "is the first of the Major Arcana in the Tarot. He is a symbol, nothing more, but believe me, symbols can have power of their own. Much as you would imagine him to be, the Fool is a blank slate and, as such, his influence can prove troublesome. He is unpredictable, a wild card with the potential for movement in any direction. And that," sighed V, "is Sergeant Finch."

"Would you tell me something?" asked Gordon. "This time, without any allusion or misdirection?" He waited until V nodded curtly, and then continued. "If I hadn't followed you, would you have killed him?"

"It's sufficient that that is what you believed," said V. "I have no easy answers for you, I'm afraid. You were the fulcrum of last night's act; I merely played my part."

"You could have just asked, you know, instead of speaking in riddles."

V took several paces forward, stepping light on his toes, bringing the mask to within a foot of Gordon's waxen features. Gordon was too tired to back away and, besides, he had a nagging feeling that this was what exactly was expected of him. Instead, he shrugged vaguely and waited.

"You would have come?" said V, his voice velvet and curious. "Had I asked, you would have followed me into the depths? I know very well what primal nightmares you faced in the dark, but you had to confront them of your own volition." He paused, drew a whispering breath, and went on. "Of all base passions, fear is the most accursed."

This last statement rang in Gordon's ear like a finger dragged around the edge of a wineglass and, this time, driven by naked reflex, he moved back. He opened his mouth and managed to exhale a breath he hadn't even realised he'd been holding, but there were no words to accompany it. He grasped for something, anything at all, but for all that he could find the power of articulation, Gordon felt that his mind might as well have been scoured.

V, in response, simply grinned. This expression poured through the mask and out into the space between them as if it were vapour, so powerful was it.

"Had it occurred to you, Gordon," he said, "that there are _two_ Jokers in every deck?"

V unbuckled his belt and slipped the knives from around his waist as Gordon continued to stare. Stretching out a hand, he dropped the belt onto the piano, where the bright blades clinked against one another in a brief, discordant toccata. Gordon's eye was caught by the glare of candlelight along one razor edge, and when he glanced back, he saw that V was still engaged in a slow, careful study.

"I wasn't part of your plans either?" he asked.

"No," V told him, "you weren't, until you elected to be. I've a long road ahead of me, but it won't be easy. I could do a lot worse to take what I find along the way and, if I can, put it to good use."

Gordon reflected on this idiom for a moment, as it seemed that V was content to allow him time and space to form his conclusions in peace.

From one end of this curious ride down through Wonderland and into Hell, he realised, he'd learned that he had more power over his fate than he'd ever contemplated. He'd learned that he had the facility to choose well once he understood that he _had_ that choice. He'd learned that there was in fact a perfect balance to be struck between duty and responsibility, and that the two were not, as he'd always assumed, one and the same thing.

As he fitted these considerations into his contemplation, Gordon sealed one last understanding, which was that he had no need to explain any of this to V; somewhere between the two of them, he already knew.

"The rose," he said, indicating the flower with a tilt of his head. "It's not going to live long down here, you know." V turned, subjected the bloom to a long, even gaze, and then refocused his attention.

"You would be surprised at what thrives in darkness," he said, and Gordon heard a wry smile in V's voice as he spoke. "Nevertheless, it won't be here for much longer. I intend it for...an old friend."

Something in the tone of these last few words struck Gordon straight down to the bone. It wasn't that they were angry, or venomous, or even forthright; they were, rather, delivered in the softest melancholy he'd ever heard in his life. He looked into a pair of black eyes that were firmly fixed upon him, waiting and perhaps even hoping for a reaction.

All at once, Gordon understood that he had no mark from which to place judgement upon V, no adequate frame of reference, and no point of contact whatsoever. Over the past few weeks, while he'd come within whispering distance of many truths about V, most of which he still felt he'd have been happier without, he remained light years from appreciating the man in the mask. Perhaps, he concluded, that was all for the best, too.

"I came to say goodbye," he said, stepping forward, "for the last time. This time, in good spirits." He extended a hand. After a long pause born of careful consideration rather than hesitancy, V grasped it firmly.

"You have more courage than you've ever allowed yourself to believe, Gordon," V told him. "You will need it in the years that lie ahead."

"Are things really so bad?"

"Not yet," was the grave response.

"Perhaps all you need is hope," said Gordon, though he turned his gaze down as he did so. "Nothing _has_ to happen. None of this is set in stone. Take care of yourself, V."

Gordon headed for the stairs, a seraphic smile crossing his face in spite of his near-complete exhaustion. Just before he closed the door behind him, however, he heard the jukebox stir and then flick over onto a new track. He stood, frozen, as the words of the song echoed up the stairwell and spun a web about him.

_Take a look around you boy, it's bound to scare you boy  
>And you tell me over and over and over again my friend<br>You don't believe we're on the eve of destruction_...

Very slowly, Gordon's smile faded away entirely.


	18. Epilogue

The car drew to a halt in the first tentative spray of rain from the murky night sky. Hauling the handbrake up, Sweetman sighed shakily and glanced down at the small box on the passenger seat as if it were a ticking bomb.

_It might as well be,_ he considered, but he reached across and lifted it to his chest in spite of this. Whether it was real, or only a product of his exhausted imagination, he felt a trickle of heat leaching out of the thing, through his coat and into his shrinking flesh. Fighting the urge to drop it, he clambered out of the car and, squinting to keep the rain out of his eyes, scuttled for the porch across the street.

Eventually, after a battle with the recalcitrant lock, he slipped inside and, gasping with relief, slammed the door behind him. The hall was in darkness, and he shoved his shoulders up against the door while he groped for the light switch with his free hand.

The mock crystal chandelier flashed into life above his head, and only now did he begin to unwind. Taking two tentative steps forward, he slipped his burden out of the crook of his elbow and deposited it on the hall table.

"What's got into you?" he muttered, then shook his head violently, as if he were trying to dislodge an insect from his ear. Stretching out one hand, he flipped the latch on the box and prised back the lid. His eyes narrowed as the light infested the contents and struck a gleam from each and every surface; he tried to keep his composure, but there was something wholly unnatural about the silent sparkle from within the box, and he snapped the lid back down once more with a sharp exhalation on his lips.

Moving through into the kitchen, trying to work some life back into legs that seemed tight with apprehension, Sweetman pulled a bottle from beneath the sink and wrenched off the cap. There were clean glasses on the drainer, but he ignored them and poured an indulgent draught of cheap, fiery vodka down his throat in one spasmodic swallow.

Coughing, wiping hot tears from his eyes with the back of his hand, he fought down a gag reflex, and dropped the bottle onto the table with a bang.

This was echoed, almost simultaneously, by a muffled crack from somewhere above his head. Sweetman, who had been about to reach for the cold water tap, froze like a hunted rabbit with his fingers curled around the edge of the sink. A trickle of vodka ran down his lip with indecent slowness, and he moved only to lick it away.

After an age, he very gently unhooked his hands from the freezing steel and turned around as though he were on wheels. Whatever the noise from upstairs had been, it hadn't come again so far. Sweetman took one step across the tiles, then two more, his ears straining for any further noise, no matter how slight. His breath seemed to rasp in his throat, and he tried to slow it a little.

As he slipped out of the kitchen and paced back through the narrow hall, his heart squeezed tight up against his sternum, he reached out for the switch at the bottom of the stairs and pressed it. Nothing happened; the steps ahead of him ascended into curdled shadows and there was no light to relieve them.

For no reason that he could identify, Sweetman glanced across at the hall table once more before clamping his hand to the banister and starting to climb. The first step complained beneath his foot and, cursing beneath his breath, he shifted his weight to the side of the tread to silence it.

By the time he reached the top of the stairs, the darkness was so profound that he waved a hand into it, desperately seeking anything he could find to show him the way. After a few strained seconds, realising that he should make some sort of move or remain standing at the top of the stairs in a fearful trance for the rest of the night, he stumbled to his bedroom armed with nothing more than a mental map of the upstairs landing.

The door handle was as cold as stone. He drew his hand back by instinct, but then reached out again and twisted it, pushing the door inward. A moment's exploration told him that the bedroom light was also dead, and he stepped out into what little light was filtering through the net curtains. As he did so, his breath filled out and condensed in the icy air of the room.

The French window behind the curtains was open, and the building rain danced and splashed in through the gap to apply a gorgeous sparkle to the fine lace on the curtains. _No, not just open_, Sweetman corrected himself. Even from where he stood, he could see that the bolt had been smashed in and now hung limp from one last remaining screw.

Some small part of his dissonant mind was insisting that he should turn and run, that the intruder was very likely still in the house. The greater part of Sweetman's conscious mind, however, was suddenly and intently focused on the object that lay upon his pillow, clearly and unequivocally outlined against the fresh white cotton.

Stepping forward, he reached out and plucked the rose from the pillow, folding the stem loosely into his palm and bringing the lush bloom up before his face. The petals were a rich, velvet black in the shadows, but something told him that this flower was such a deep shade of garnet red that it wouldn't look much brighter even in full and undiminished sunlight.

The rose was now so close to his face that he couldn't help but draw its scent into his nostrils. It was both sweet and vibrant at once, with a gentle undercurrent of musk, but there was...something else. He sniffed again, and there it was. Beneath all the beauty of the bloom, there was a faint but unmistakeable aroma of ichor, dust and decadence, as if the rose had sprung into being in a sepulchre.

Sweetman's hand clenched convulsively around the stem as the telephone rang behind him, and when he uncurled his fingers it was to see that several thorns had punctured the flesh of his palm, leaving gleaming pinpoints of blood behind. It wasn't until the third toll of the phone that he reacted, drawing out of a sluggish reverie and turning to pick it up. The hand holding the rose dropped as he did so, and the flower hung forgotten at his side.

"Hello?" he croaked, and then coughed slightly. "Commander? Yes, this isn't a good time, I've just..." he hesitated, listened to the growling voice at the far end of the line, and turned to stare blindly out of the window as he did so. "Yes, sir, I've found her. I just got back from...what? Yes, sir. We've managed to recover the...hello? Commander?"

The line had clicked and fallen silent, quite without warning. For one moment, Sweetman wondered whether the connection had been severed at the far end, but then, realising that there was no dial tone, no sound at all, he shuddered reflexively and, still gripping the receiver, turned his head down to look at the phone. He swore that his neck muscles creaked as he did so.

There was a long, shining steel blade resting on the cut-off button, as naturally and serenely as if it had every right to be there. It was at this point that Sweetman became divorced from reality and started to drift with the rip-tide of sweet, comforting insanity. He didn't even react when a river of pale condensation came pouring over his shoulder, marking out the exhalation of the man standing behind him.

"Oscar," said the voice behind the breath, and it was infinitely gentle in its expression. Sweetman sagged, dropping the receiver, but didn't try to turn around. Instead, he spoke out into the darkness, his eyes still fixed to the foul, rain-washed world beyond the open window.

"They told me you were dead," he said, vaguely, moving nothing but his lips.

"I am," replied the voice, still soft, suffused with sorrow. A hand gripped his shoulder now, turning him around. Sweetman no longer had any volition of his own, and was content to be led. Cool, gloved fingers gripped his chin and turned his face up, and when his unblinking gaze closed with the deathly glitter in two slanted eye sockets, he smiled. He couldn't think why, but he smiled anyway.

"When devils will the blackest sins put on," said the shade, "they do suggest at first with heavenly shows, as I do now."

A hand shifted, and then struck. The words faded and blurred into mush in his ears, and the last thing that Oscar Sweetman heard was a regretful sigh.

It wasn't until the man's frantic gasps had died away entirely that V left the room, closing the door behind him with no more than the slightest of clicks. He drifted across the landing, at perfect ease in the shadows, and descended the stairs with his cloak sweeping out languorous sine waves behind him. In the bedroom, the phone began to ring once more; he ignored it.

The box lay on the hall table, just where Sweetman had left it. For a while, V circled the table, one hand outstretched, not touching the lid but, all the same, missing it by the merest of margins. The mask tilted, as if there lay behind the sterile white plastic all the sins and curiosities of the world. Finally, coming to rest, V opened the box and reached in, plucking at the contents with finger and thumb.

One small vial from several was lifted up to eye level, and V directed a dispassionate stare both at and through the glutinous scarlet fluid inside it. There was a thin meniscus of pale golden plasma above the blood where the corpuscles had begun to settle, but no more than that. In every other way, the small tube communicated a promise far out of scale for its size.

Turning the frail glass vial between his fingers, he studied the label pasted onto the side. On it, in smudged black ink, someone had scrawled a hasty 'V'.

The world turned beneath his feet while, outside, he heard the rain gather pace like a cavalry charge and begin to hammer the streets beneath it without mercy, the subtle splash becoming a furious hiss and crash of water on concrete. For an eternity of moments, V gazed upon the future while his breath slipped in and out of the mask and his heartbeat slowed to a systolic thump beneath his ribs.

"What fates impose," he whispered, "that men must needs abide; it boots not to resist both wind and tide."

The words curled out into the empty hall, whirling around into each corner of the room, and could not be unsaid. If, for one fraction of a second, his fingers tightened upon the vial, he scarcely noticed it. At last, moving with sad and stately grace, V replaced the tube and closed the lid of the box.

The front door swung back easily and silently, exposing a dead landscape shot with leaping currents of rainwater and shrouded in the curves of mist to which this gave birth. With the glow of the hall at his back, stood halfway between light and shadow, V paused and half-turned, looking back over his shoulder as if to print the sight upon his mind for the rest of eternity.

Then, wrapping his cloak about him, he stepped out and disappeared into the shrieking storm.

_**The End**_


End file.
